Memorial Day Gaming

 I had a good turnout for the Memorial Day Weekend Game Bash on Sunday. I put on two games, Dragon Rampant and Check Your 6: Jet Age. 

We started with Dragon Rampant in 15 mil. An alliance of humans and dwarves against undead and dark elves.

The suspects.

Landon, Ziggy and I commanded the forces of "good" while David, Wayne and Mark shared the "evil" army. There were three objective markers along the centerline of the table and we duked it out for control of those over the course of ten turns.

Our battlefield before the fighting got started.

Wayne and Zig slug it out for control of the giant tree at the far end of the table.

Landon and I push towards the ruins as a giant lizard and skeletal cavalry appear to challenge us.

Dwarf warrior and a group of my cavalry capture the central bridge objective.

The "Romans" gave as good as they got against skeletal warriors and the skelephant.

David's poor chariots had a tough time getting going. We corrected their watery situation after this photo was taken. Fortunately they were still floundering and hadn't actually passed an activation roll.

Similarly, David's skelegriffons were lacking in the activation department. They never once succeeded at an activation roll the entire game!

The brawl at the ruins. The giant lizard and dark elf executioners had captured the site, supported by crossbowmen, a sorceress and undead beastmen and light cavalry. My peasant rabble and Landon's dwarves didn't much care for their odds!

We ended the game after seven full turns. We good guys were way ahead on points to the point where Team Evil couldn't catch up. The uncooperative chariots and griffons in the center made such a difference, not to mention very poor activation results on turn 1 for Team Evil. We jumped on the objectives early and the bad guys had to push us away which much easier said than done. They did capture the ruins from me and Landon but Zig's "Romans" held on tight to the left flank. An entertaining game and a good time for sure.

After tidying up the table we put CY6JA on the table. The scenario was a Vietnam bombing mission featuring Navy Corsairs and Phantoms against the typical assortment of MiGs. The teams remained the same as the previous game, with Mike being added to the USN side; he showed up a bit late.

Wayne flew a pair of MiG-17s, David over there, a pair of 19's. Ziggy was the Navy's commander.

One of David's MiG-19s knocks out Ziggy's A-7. The Navy players each flew an A-7 and an F-4. The yellow tokens represented bombing targets.

Wayne's ace in the red MiG-17 scores a hit on Landon's A-7. Just engine damage. We can deal with that.

I finally rolled up a hit with a missile, a Sidewinder into Wayne's red '17. Boom, dead! YESSSS. Then I remembered the "Malfunction roll." D10 comes up a "2." Damn. Put Wayne's plane back. Stupid Raytheon.

I didn't take very many photos. At the end of the day, it was a terrible outing for the Navy pilots. Three A-7s lost and all pilots were captured by the VC. Two bomb drops over the targets but no damage done. Seven missiles fired, ZERO hits. We  probably should have slow-rolled and fired walls of Sparrows early hoping to score an "odds" kill. You figure sixteen Sparrows over the first four turns probably could have gotten one success. Probably should have sent the Phantoms in first to get the MiGs out of formation but hey, you live, you learn. The North Vietnamese players enjoyed things and got some revenge for the earlier loss in Dragon Rampant.

It was a fine afternoon of dice and toy soldiers and it was great having a houseful of buddies over. As we all know, it's not about the game, it's about the experience. Looking forward to a little D-Day Bolt Action next weekend at Mike's place. Be well and good gaming!