Monday, March 23, 2009

3,3,3,3,1,1,1,2,2,2,1,1,1 !!!!


Last Friday was the March meet of P.O.B. and we had a good turnout with some new faces. Plenty of games were played over the 5 hours of gaming. 5 hours! yep, bet it went by in a blurr.

First up I played Pit, maybe the loudest game I have ever played. It was fun, especially when one player thought he had to collect one of every card type. The rest of us couldn't figure out what was going on until he asked if it was really possible to collect one of each kind. Good fun.

Next up we split off into some smaller groups and I played Cleopatra and the Society of Architect's which was a card management type game. It had some lovely pieces that you used to build up an Egyptian area that looked amazing at the end of the game. I managed to win the game by about 10 talans which was good. Can't really say I expected to win but I just went hell for leather on the build using corrupted resources. Then offered huge amounts to the gods to off set the corruption.
Next up was Chicago Express which is a great train game. Not as deep as Age of Steam which was running on another table but has more than enough strategy to keep it fresh. I struggled a bit at the start although I have played it before. Its all about bidding enough money for the railroad shares without paying over the odds. I did OK, but not enough to win.

The other games, Age of Steam and Age of Empires 3 were finishing up now so we decided to play a couple of games of werewolf to round off the evening. Unfortunately Mudhoney had forgotten his cards, luckily I had a copy of coloretto with me. So stripy chameleons were werewolves and green ones were villagers. It all worked out well, especially for the werewolves who managed to win both games.

Next meet has been scheduled for the 24th April if anyone fancies coming along.

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Go home to Mama


Monday saw Combat Commander Mediterranean land on the table courtesy of Mudhoney. We have been trying to get some regular plays in of Combat Commander as we both enjoy the game.
We played the scenarios Saint Agthna which involved an American patrol coming across some Italian defenders. The Italians had the advantage of numbers, plus they could hide some of there troops and deploy them when the time marker hit 2. the Americans had better weapons with a hvy machine gun and light motor as well as a couple of medium machine guns.

I played as the Americans and deployed my units in two areas on my side of the map. My plan was to move one group armed with the hvy mg into a building while the rest were to move up the edge of the map and flank the Italians.

Things started out well, I quickly took hold of the buildings at the bottom of the map taking out the Italians that were using it. Meanwhile my other squad was getting pinned down by a medium mg in the woods. Over the next few turns my hvy mg was making mincemeat of any Italians I could see from the relative safety of there building. My other flank had now lost its leader and was not looking so good.

The Italian reserves appeared and Mudhoney decided to spread then about a bit. Unfortunately they were in range of my hvy mg and they didn't last that long. The number of Italian casualties was mounting and things were not looking good for them. Several had routed home to mama which I couldn't really blame them for. Things were getting worse on my other flank. I had lost my leader but gained a hero only to loose him again. Without a leader movement and firing was hard work. Especially as the Italians were dug into foxholes in the woods on top of a hill. My mortar rounds were ineffective as were any shots I sent that way. I sent another group that way to help relieve them and to add more firepower but it wasn't looking pretty.
Next thing we know a fire had started near the Italians and was spreading both towards them and a small unit I had sent that way. Fortune came my way with a jam and subsequent break of the Italians mg which allowed me to move up a veteran unit. They survived some pot shots and then advanced into combat with some ambush cards. I won the fight and the game as the Italians had now hit there surrender limit.

I was trailing on VP's all the way through the game as I couldn't get to the objective areas. I was pinned down in a couple of places and was loath to move my heavy gunners out of there cover. I was pushing for a surrender win and it eventually came.

It was a good match and if Mudhoney had placed his reserves in a different place things would have changed for the worse.