What boardgames have you played recently?

[thedrake]

The Bridges at Eisenbach solo scenario test (for LNL Heroes of the Gap,tactical WW3)

Setting up a scenario I have wanted to do for a long time,based on the Alsfeld bridges scenario in Ralph Peters "Red Army" novel.

German Territorialheer and US MP's are tasked with holding the main highway bridges leading thru Eisenbach the day after the balloon has gone up. Soviet VDV have landed on the other side of town and have taken up position to rush one end of the bridge. A heliborne detachment will land and seize the other end of the bridge--this will be the signal for the attack to begin.

This scenario is based on the one in the book described above and will see a mix of forces--Soviet VDV and Spetsnaz along with reinforcing helo/airborne support and motor rifle units , and NATO forces of US Army, German reservists,and a crack British platoon.

Initial setup sees German reservists and M113 on one end of the bridge--the MG squad has Slayer skill. US Miltary Police guard the other end,also with an MG team. Soviets set up with 3-3-4 Airborne squads and one Spetsnaz team and quite a few SW's and two good leaders (the Political Officer has Charismatic skill.)

Reinforcements will be mixed bag for NATO--German M48 tanks and squad and a half of reservists with MG3 ; British platoon of 1-7-4 squads with HMG and Sgt. Hill and Challenger,Scimitar,and Scorpion vehicles ; US Army with 5 squads,2 M1A1 tanks,M3 Bradley,many SW's and an A-10.

Soviets get a couple more AT/AA teams by helo and a Hind to support them,followed by motor rifle platoon of 4 squads and two each T72,T80,and BMP's.

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[Proff3RTR]

The Bridges at Eisenbach solo scenario test (for LNL Heroes of the Gap,tactical WW3)

Setting up a scenario I have wanted to do for a long time,based on the Alsfeld bridges scenario in Ralph Peters "Red Army" novel.

German Territorialheer and US MP's are tasked with holding the main highway bridges leading thru Eisenbach the day after the balloon has gone up. Soviet VDV have landed on the other side of town and have taken up position to rush one end of the bridge. A heliborne detachment will land and seize the other end of the bridge--this will be the signal for the attack to begin.

This scenario is based on the one in the book described above and will see a mix of forces--Soviet VDV and Spetsnaz along with reinforcing helo/airborne support and motor rifle units , and NATO forces of US Army, German reservists,and a crack British platoon.

Initial setup sees German reservists and M113 on one end of the bridge--the MG squad has Slayer skill. US Miltary Police guard the other end,also with an MG team. Soviets set up with 3-3-4 Airborne squads and one Spetsnaz team and quite a few SW's and two good leaders (the Political Officer has Charismatic skill.)

Reinforcements will be mixed bag for NATO--German M48 tanks and squad and a half of reservists with MG3 ; British platoon of 1-7-4 squads with HMG and Sgt. Hill and Challenger,Scimitar,and Scorpion vehicles ; US Army with 5 squads,2 M1A1 tanks,M3 Bradley,many SW's and an A-10.

Soviets get a couple more AT/AA teams by helo and a Hind to support them,followed by motor rifle platoon of 4 squads and two each T72,T80,and BMP's.

View attachment 54309View attachment 54310View attachment 54311

I remember reading this book back in 1990 or 91 in Germany as part of BAOR, interesting book IIRC.

 

[JOS]

Up Front with my cousin, Chris Leach, of ~San Antonio, TX, played in the warmth of summertime Maine. Remains a very fun system, also known as 'expletive you', when streams drop, etc. US victories in each scenario in which they were participants. German flexibility often seemed insufficient to overcome their discard constraint, and the risks inherent in 'doing something' to burn cards. To tie this in with the historical performance threads, that may be why the Germans kept up those ill-advised counterattacks: they were playing Up Front and drew the wrong cards!

Enjoy, Joshua

 

[62nd Army]

Gentlemen

Started the 1939 Scenario from Advanced Third Reich at the last Bunker meeting.
Using this as a dry run before starting the CG. Had a great time!!

Thanks
Joe

 

[Paul M. Weir]

Not played it yet, but I got The Gamers' "Last Blitzkreig" on Friday. Just figuring it out will be a task in itself. The combat (and many other) rules are new and very unusual to me. I suspect that when I grok them they will turn out to be reasonably straight forward and of medium complexity, but they are different. A great effort has been made to portray the friction of combat, not just from enemy action but also from what you are moving behind your own lines. How it succeeds, I have to find out the only and hard way, by playing.

 

[wrongway149]

On Saturday, I played the old Euro 'Dschunke' ("Junk") and 'American Rails' - which I really like a lot. Almost won my first time, usually holding as much cash as possible.

 

[wrongway149]

Edit:Then I played ASL on Sunday.

 

[Bill Cirillo]

Played a couple games of Karuba, a game of Splendor, and a best 2 out of 3 rounds of Codenames last Saturday night. Karuba is a 2016 Spiel des Jahres nominee that involves tile placement/optimal path planning and is playable in about 25-30 minutes. Nice quick fun.

Bill

 

[prymus]

La Bataille de Qatre Bras, close French Victory. Getting ready to play the Mont St. Jean scen #1 Chateau Goumont, the fight for Hougoumont Chateau. Played this before and was a close British victory and looking forward to another go as the French commander. Also played a game of Forbidden Island with the Wife and Daughter last night. Was the first time we lost, but it was close. One more turn would have seen us off the island but a section sunk with the launch pad, thus no helo escape.

 

[Browning]

Bill, remember the old album game produced by Yaquinto called "Swashbuckler?" It was your basic bar fight / ship fight inspired by Errol Flynn movies. Your character threw mugs, chairs, jumped onto tables, swung from the chandelier and more. Someone has reworked the premise and released it in a fantasy setting. It's called "The Dragon and Flagon" and is due to be released at the end of this month.

 

[greuh]

GMT's 1989.
Like Twilight Struggle, but centered on the key year 1989.
I did not enjoy it. I did not care for the lousy Power Struggle mechanism. It was missing the pressure of DefCon status and a lot of event card depict somewhat obscure or too generical events (compared to TS).

Gang of Four and Skull&Roses : small games that still are very good !

 

[Proff3RTR]

Have set up on my gaming table, GMT Games 'Operation Dauntless', CG 18.5 , this is basically the whole campaign, love the system and it is very, very easy to grasp. Nice counters, nice map, if maybe a bit to dark, and very good player aids, can not recommend this game enough.

 

[Carln0130]

I got a couple of playings of Up Front in this weekend via VASSAL. Great stuff. Been a long, long time, but I still love that game.

 

[A Lost Canadian]

Played a lot of Minden Games stuff this weekend. First played the solo Poor Bloody Infantry. You the player have to take 45 Tommies across the open, machine gun swept ground of no man's land on the morning of July 1st, 1916. I got incredibly lucky with my barrage taking out two of the three German MGs and much of the wire (I recommend taking the Wire focus for the barrage). A dicey game but one captures the horror of the Somme in many ways.

Tonight a buddy and I played Dreadnoughts and Battlecruisers: Jutland Edition. Fun, simple introduction to naval combat. All about positioning. End game kinda dragged a bit as our battered and beaten ships limped around each other in circles flailing away. An inability for either player to roll the required number on the sink results was a key result of that. Brits on in the end but barely. A fun game that may need a tighter resolution or the players being more careful about force construction (we just picked 5 big boats at random).

 

[Houlie]

Played my first game of GMT's OOP Sekigahara. Great game. I got steamrolled, but it was a learning game. A surprisingly simple, but elegant system. The third printing should be out in a few months.

 

[Tom Morin]

Played 'Storm over Normandy' this past week, great fun game.

Plans to play 'Star Wars Rebellion' at DrewCon this coming Saturday at Ralph McDonald's bunker site. Should be fun!

Tom

 

[Proff3RTR]

Turn 5 of GMT Games Operation Dauntless's Main CG. Heavy fog lifts next turn and then all hell breaks loose, have got 2 tiger sections in place around Tessel woods to hand out a few good slaps on the left. Inside Fontenay Le-Pesnel the RSF & 11DLI are having a nightmare against Olboters III SS-Pz-Gr Abtielung, the Abtielung is holding but is going to have to pull back due to heavy pressure on the right flank and 1 of the Kompanies reducing and a few Half track losses.

Once this is over I am going to pay out the Gamers Canadian Crucible from the TCS series and go with that.
All ASL for the rest of the year is going to be via VASL as I have some very big maps to get Playtesting on.

 

[Thunderchief]

A recent visit to a friend for “a few days” of gaming (9) included ten scenarios of ASL, a campaign game of OCS – Baltic Gap and a game of Churchill by GMT.

OCS – Baltic Gap was my first jump into OCS after playing a few instructional turns of OCS – Reluctant Enemies. I’d say it’s a bit like playing three turns of Guards Counterattack and then starting RB CGIII. I did have some experience with operational level games though, so it was just a matter of applying a new system.
In five days of OCS we played 18 turns and at the end of turn 18 I conceded as the German. It was pretty heavy going but I like the system, and it’s entirely possible that I’ll be drawn in.

GMT’s Churchill is a very good three player game of the WW2 conferences with each player as either Stalin, Churchill or Roosevelt/Truman. It was a lot of fun with all sorts of sly behaviour, backstabbing and trash-talking.

 

[witchbottles]

Played a lot of Minden Games stuff this weekend. First played the solo Poor Bloody Infantry. You the player have to take 45 Tommies across the open, machine gun swept ground of no man's land on the morning of July 1st, 1916. I got incredibly lucky with my barrage taking out two of the three German MGs and much of the wire (I recommend taking the Wire focus for the barrage). A dicey game but one captures the horror of the Somme in many ways.

Tonight a buddy and I played Dreadnoughts and Battlecruisers: Jutland Edition. Fun, simple introduction to naval combat. All about positioning. End game kinda dragged a bit as our battered and beaten ships limped around each other in circles flailing away. An inability for either player to roll the required number on the sink results was a key result of that. Brits on in the end but barely. A fun game that may need a tighter resolution or the players being more careful about force construction (we just picked 5 big boats at random).

Jutland sounds pretty historically accurate, then.

 

[Corwin]

Played Virgin Queen this weekend with 6 guys from the 1st MN historical gaming society. 5 of us had not played before. We crunched through the ruleset and picked up the mechanics as we went. A lot going on in this one. Caught the mechanics but not strategies so need to play it again. Well absolutely do that. Was worth the investment and a great experience.