Huzzah! Game a Success

My game at Huzzah! on Friday night went pretty well.  I had six players and all seemed really engaged and interested in the scenario.  At the end of the game the Freedom Fighters (FF) had outgunned the French/Moan government troops and secured the crashed aircraft.  The dice gods were definitely against the French and government troops during the game as the Freedom Fighters had activation dice drawn consecutively on several occasions.  The FF players took advantage of the fortunes of war and took pretty aggressive actions which resulted in the destruction of government vehicles and several infantry squads.

Here are some photos of the action:

The Moan armored cars seize the crossroads on Turn 1.  They would not move again in the six move game!  

The Moan troops, from the 22nd Airborne Commando Battalion and the 63rd Mechanized Regiment move up to support the armored cars.  

Kitty Hawk down!  The aircraft crashed right near the crossroads.The armored cars had already been destroyed.  The Freedom Fighters have a squad along the wall of the building at the top right, a motorcycle rider at the bottom right and a squad in the building at the tail of the aircraft.  They also have the government troops in the building a the bottom of the photo under fire from several different units.  The French would try to close in from the top of the photo, but they would not be able to extricate the Moan troops from the kill zones.

The French troops coming to the rescue!  Well, at least they are trying.

The Freedom Fighters mass for the attack!

A close-up of some infantry of the Democratic Republic of Moa.

By the end of the battle, the Freedom Fighters had not only secured Kitty Hawk, they had destroyed eight of the allied units and killed or wounded several French soldiers.  The political fallout for the French government may be so severe as to cause the withdrawal of French regulars from the DRM.  What will happen as the Freedom Fighters continue their push south further into Moa?  Stay tuned to find out!

Game Night Modern Bolt Action

Had a chance to host a modern BA game last night at the NC Club January Game Night.  The battle was the Kitty Hawk Down! scenario from the 2016 extra scenarios from the BA Forum.

The battle went really well and came down to the last turn when the French and African forces (under the command of AJ, Dave and Phil) finally overpowered the Rebels/Freedom Fighters (under the fanatical command of Warren and Paul).  While the Allied forces definitely killed more Rebels and destroyed more equipment, the victory came at a pretty steep cost with one European soldier killed and another one wounded, a Cobra helicopter shutdown, an African vehicle destroyed and several African troopers killed and others wounded.

Here are some photos that I took during the game with commentary:

Pre-Game Player Posing

The Cross Roads at the Center of the Table - Hey, is that motorcycle a combatant?

Yes, as a matter of fact - BOOM!  Of course, with the next French/Government Troop  Command Die the Motorcycle Died a not glorious death!

The remains of a Rebel HMG Team in a small copse of trees.

The last phase of the last turn.  The French are in a good position and the Rebels are making one last attempt.  Can they do it?

No - The French/African Government forces hold the objective at the end of the game!  The UN envoy is saved and given the differences in casualties it is a major victory for the Allies!  Unfortunately, there will be a military funeral in Paris as the French Sniper team was taken out by his Rebel counterpart. C'est la vie! C'est la guerre!

Modern Bolt Action Game

Got to play a game of Modern Bolt Action, which I refer to as "Special Operations Forces", on Friday evening.  The game is a scenario I want to host at the Huzzah! convention in Maine in May.

My friends Ralph, AJ and Bob came over to the house to help me with the playtest.  All in all it went pretty well.  The scenario is 'Kittyhawk Down' from the 2016 Bolt Action additional scenarios. In this scenario there is plane carrying sensitive documents coming down slowly due to engine trouble.  Your force has to get to the plane and have at least one unit within 3" of the plane where it crashes by the end of the game.

We did not use all of the forces available due to there only being four of us to play.

We split up the forces by drawing cards randomly.  Most of the African forces (Bob and Ralp) were vehicles.  They only had one infantry squad.  They also had an FO controlling off-board medium mortar and to top it off they had a Huey Cobra Attack Helicopter.

AJ and I had primarily infantry for the insurgents, but we did have three heavy weapons and more importantly, we had a medium truck with ZU-23-2.

It was a very close game throughout with both sides rolling very hot or very cold - as always happens in a wargame!  The help came on when we botched up and brought the truck on too soon.  Then Bob whiffed on the shot and the truck survived.  Then we traded shots until the plane crashed right into the middle of the board between our forces.

There were two turns of fierce fighting and right at the end, the command group (LT an done other soldier) of the African forces managed to get within the required 3" of the crash site.  AJ and I failed to get our forces within 3" and we were not able to kill the command squad so the African government troops were able to eek out a victory.

Here are some photos of the game in action and before I cleaned up the terrain.

The table.  Government troops came in from the left, insurgents from the right.

The crash site after the battle.  Red markers show where figures were killed during the fight.  The markers around the aircraft on the right was where one of my squads was wiped out trying to hold the objective.

The last turn of the game and I couldn't get the fresh squad in the cover area to pass their cohesion test and go out towards the aircraft.

My 14.5mm AA gun which did some real damage during the game including wiping out one of Bob's infantry units and destroying an Armored Car.

The heroic Lieutenant and his radio operator fighting to within 3" of the crashed plane and securing it for the win!  We just couldn't root them out of that cover!

African government troops and even a French Special Forces sniper team upper right of the photo.

The truck with ZU-23-2 AA gun.  The smoke/fire marker just below it was where the helicopter crashed.  My daughter's cat loves to try to destroy the helicopter so I had to move it to a safe location before I had a chance to take a photo.

Overall I am very happy with the scenario and I think it will go over very well at the convention.  I have to get the forces split up into "commands" which I can give to each player and that will also allow me to balance the game depending on how many players show up at the table.

2014 - The Insurgency

Here are some photos of the insurgents and one of their vehicles.  I have three insurgent armies: The White Sheiks, the Black Terror and the Red Martyrs.  The armies have their own strengths and weaknesses - but all are ready to try and overthrow the Moan government!

A Unimog truck being used as a gun platform for a 14.5mm Heavy Machine Gun.  The truck is a Matchbox.  The gun and crew is from the excellent Liberation Miniatures range.

More from Liberation Miniatures - This time they are "insurgents" who are from the White Shieks terror cell.

The White Shieks commander and some support units.  All of the figures, as well as the Motorcycle, are from Liberation Miniatures.  The heavy machine gun is from the Stan Johansson range.

The Black Terror insurgent cell has occupied a small town in the northern part of DR Moa.  Figures from Liberation Miniatures.  The buildings are paper models from the excellent Paper Terrain line.  The buildings are available in 6mm, 15mm, 20mm and 28mm.  They go together very easily and I think they look fine on the table.  They have the added benefit of coming with partially destroyed copies of each building.  This adds greatly to the versatility of the buildings and fills virtually every building need you could have.

More Black Terror fighters in another building.

The buildings not only come with destroyed versions, there are also walls and out buildings as part of the set.  The walls are glued to foam core board and mounted on a cardboard base.

The Red Martyrs terror cell.  These figures are OOP (Heroes?)

African Figures

Wow!  It has been a long time since I last posted.  Here are some photos of my African Modern figures.  The whole project is coming along quite nicely.  Only about 16 more figures to paint and everything will be ready for the first scenario.  I will be posting more once work let's up a bit next week.  Until then enjoy these photos.  More coming soon!

President Seliki Mumbato of the Democratic Republic of Moa

The DRM Presidential Guard Battalion

Inaugural Game in the Hobby Room!

Had a chance to host a game in my new Hobby Room last night.  We played a new scenario for Special Operations Forces set in my fictitious African country - the Democratic Republic of Moa.

My friends Ralph, Charlie, Ed and AJ were able to travel up and play in this initial game.  We had a really good time and the new rule set is really coming along!

Here is a picture of the guys after the game:

And here is a couple of photos of the game in action:

The White Sheiks and Black Terror on the Attack

French and African Allies make use of cover and concealment

2014 Gaming Start

Yesterday I had an opportunity to spend the day with my good friend Andrew.  He was bringing a bunch of his hobby stuff to the house to store it here while he continues his period of exile from New England in Indiana.  He has amazing terrain stuff and some really nice WWII 20mm vehicles for CROSSFIRE.  I now have a complete small hobby store in my basement with an entire range of Woodland Scenics terrain material.

We also had an opportunity to work on some terrain stuff for my Modern Africa scenario for an upcoming Northern Conspiracy game night.  We had to finish the hills shown in these photos and now I am working on some small fillers for here and there.  Here are some photos of what we worked on:

The figures are ready and the terrain is pretty much set.  Now, all we need to do is play a game and see if the rules are any good!  I certainly hope the rule changes give the desired effect.  It would really stink to have all this money, time and effort into figures, vehicles and terrain and then not have a set of rules that work!  We will have to wait and see.  Battle report hopefully on January 10th or 11th!