Black Sea Boats! - An Age of Deadnoughts AAR

 On Saturday, Mark, David and I kept our Memorial Day weekend gaming tradition alive, this time with Victory at Sea Age of Dreadnoughts. I brought out my original two fleets and put together a couple of straightforward opposing forces. Because there were only three of us  due to a couple of cancellations, I removed all of the destroyers and we only played with the capital ships. 

In the red corner we have the mighty Turkish Navy featuring:

The Barbarossa and the Torgud Reis - both Barbarossa-class pre-dreadnought Battleships

and the Midilli and the Medjidieh - two protected cruisers

And in the white corner, hailing from Sevastopol, the Russian Black Sea Fleet featuring:

The Patelimon and Tri Svyatitelya - two pre-dreadnoughts,

Pamiat Merkuria a better-than-typical protected cruiser and

The Almaz, a very early aviation cruiser, with no planes deployed.

Mark chose the Turkish Navy and David and I split the Russians with one battleship and one cruiser each. I captained the Pantelimon and the Almaz.

Mark, David and bits of the table. I think this was the first outing for those islands with I made years ago.

I sent the Almaz to the left, implying it was going to hook around the island to our front. Mark fell for the bait and sent a ship to cut it off.

The Almaz cut back to follow the rest of the Russians. That Turkish would be wasting time getting turned around. Meanwhile, all guns that could reach began hitting one of the Turkish cruisers, I think it was the Medjidieh.

The cruiser went under the waves in short order.

The two lead Turkish ships were getting turned around back towards the battle, allowing the Russians to engage another lone target, the Torgus Reis.

Things weren't all rosy for the Russians though, the Almaz gets hammered by the Reis and is sunk.

And as the ships closed, things just just got nastier. The Pantelimon hit the Barbarossa with a torpedo, wrecking then engine, causing it to stop, dead in the water. The Reis was hit with barrage after barrage, ultimately resulting in all weapons becoming ineffective. The other Turkish cruiser, Midilli, had also become crippled. The other Russian cruiser, Pamiat Merkuria joined the Almaz beneath the waves.

At the end, the Turks had two severely damaged ships, one that couldn't move and another that could not shoot. The Russians still had two very healthy battleships. A brutal engagement for sure but a fine time was had by all.

Victory at Sea doesn't make it on the table quite enough but is always a lot of fun. We need to get it out a bit more often. Until next time, be well and good gaming!

Battleships and Battletech

 The Space Cadets had our last big gathering of the year on Saturday. We played a couple games and overall had a fine time. I set up the first game - Victory at Sea Age of Deadnoughts... the WW1 variant. The encounter was an Italian convoy being intercepted by an Austro-Hungarian task force. Although the two fleets never really got into it during the war, they make for a nice pair for this kind of gaming.

The large Italian group in the center commanded by me, Mike and Ziggy. Mark and Wayne helmed the AH ships. The AH ships arrived from both sides. They had many targets to choose from. I barely took any pictures.

The scrum later in the game. Mark made a mistake by having his best battleship get behind our convoy instead of plunging it right into the middle where it could use its plentiful armaments to their fullest.

At the end, the Kriegsmarine sank five transports and crippled two others but lost four of their five warships.  Not a good rate of exchange.

I think the scenario is presented improperly in the Mongoose VaS rulebook; the convoy has too many warships and the raiders not enough. Live and learn!

Next up we played a six-person game of Battletech Alpha Strike. Wayne put together the scenario and provided the minis. Scenery / terrain was a whole 'nuther thing but we cobbled together enough to make a game of it.

Kurita and Eridani Light Horse forces advance towards the downed dropship. 

We did have some cool Samurai-inspired mechs on the Kurita side.

I got "last licks" on the enemy Warhammer.

And then finished off the Marauder.

Due to some scenario victory conditions that were the subject of much debate, the Kurita side lost with very little chance of winning. It was a darn entertaining game though, so victory conditions notwithstanding, we all had a fine time. 

Memorial Day 2019 Games

Hi all. As this long Memorial Day weekend winds down let's a take a moment to think and thank those who've paid the ultimate price for your continued freedom.

Saturday afternoon I hosted another fantastic iteration of the Memorial Day Game Bash. Over ten hours we played two very entertaining games - Dragon Rampant and Victory at Sea: Age of Dreadnoughts. We had six players - three a side for both and everyone seemed to have a great time - either that or they're excellent liars!

Dragon Rampant was first and we had a team of Mike, David and Mark leading an Undead / Dark Elf force into a sleepy village defended by the best spearmen and cavalry we could put together. The defenders we me, Ziggy and Charles.

Our players.

The battlefield at the outset. The wintry theme was a nice distraction from the 100 degree heat outside!

Ziggy's cavalry takes the fight to the enemy, smashing into the undead goblins riding the skeletal wolves. The bone griffons join in! In the end, Zig's cavalry was wiped out but so was the undead cavalry and the griffons were reduced to a single model ( 2 strength points ).

The Dark Elf sorceress, her bodyguard of Executioners, undead beastmen,  a host of spectres and the undead Lord form the center of the Army of Darkness' line. Charles' legionnaires and general are lined up opposite looking a bit outnumbered.

My eagles spent three or four turns failing activations and ending my turn prematurely. Finally though, they woke up and smashed into a unit of skeletal warrior on the left flank.

Mark's chariots which had also had considerable activation issues finally got it together and began working around the right flank only to be greeted by Charles' cavalry. You can see my wizard, John Wick on the hilltop. He'd prove to be quite dangerous.

The center has taken a real beating for both sides. Charles' spearmen work on the Skeletal Lord while his cavalry seeks safety after a twin thumping from the chariots and skelephant! John Wick has given the undead beastmen a severe thrashing. Zig and I still have solid defensive unit in the village defending the yellow objective marker.

Bad Ash does his bit, slapping Charles' spearmen around.

Meanwhile, John Wick completely owns the beastmen while a griffon and skelephant take aim at him. BRING IT ON!

Wrong movie, right actor, right gesture.

The center of the battlefield. Ziggy's heavy infantry hustle toward the fight, so do my eagles which are parked in from of the skeletal archers. Forgot all about them having Wild Charge - they should have plowed into those archers a long time ago...  Oh well.

The wizard gets what he asked for and then some.

Poor John.

Zig's archers finally pass an activation roll and shoot the bejeezus out of the undead infantry my eagles had worked over earlier. My eagles get pincushioned by the stupid undead archers.

Finally, the killing machine that was David's Skeletal Lord bites the dust. I moved my spearmaidens out of their defensive position to goad Mark into attacking. The chariots and skelephant had taken to COWERING NEXT TO THE SORCERESS, TRYING TO HEAL UP. My taunts worked and I was able to take out the skelephant.

Mark finally gets his chariots around and launches them into Zig's spearmen. Both units are wiped out! At the same time, Zig's archers fail a morale test and beat feet. Dammit!

The archers and Mike's sorceress pelt my spearmaidens causing my to make morale tests which I of course fail, leaving the town in the possession of the ARMY OF DARKNESS!

The realms of evil are apparently low on fabric - perhaps that's why they're rampaging? What a blast! All those minis and it ended with only five on the board. Now that's a blood/bone bath.

--------------------  Intermission while the table is reset -------------------------

We split up the winning team, trading Mike and Charles. This second game was a hypothetical WWI naval clash with the Austro-Hungarian Navy sortieing out of the Adriatic and into the open Mediterranean. The Italian Navy is dispatched to intercept. Mark, David and Charles split the AH forces while Mike, Zig and I commanded the Italians. Mike and Mark were the commodores for the opposing fleets.

A plan is sort of formed. Rules are referenced.

Toot toot!

Ziggy lands a critical hit early on one of David's battleships (orange marker in the distance) but sadly it ended up being pretty inconsequential.

So what we got goin' on uh-here is a stupid ring around the island situation with a bunch of ships that are all basically the same speed. Mike favored this but I rejected it as a fruitless dance. I encouraged him to turn into the front of their fleet so we'd be able to get to up close and personal with them. In the end, Ziggy and I turned into the Austro-Hungarians while Mike chased them. 

Things start to really heat up. Z and Chuck's battleships are getting very close.

So Zig and I have become the anvil. Mike's "hammer" is waaay off in the distance and the AH fleet is coordinated and relatively close together.

Yellow markers are splashes. Orange flames are bad. Charles had just sunk one of my Garibaldi class armored cruisers with a torpedo. "Poor subdivision" makes torpedoes extremely deadly.

Meanwhile, Ziggy's Regina Margherita unloads on a Habsburg-class, sending it to the bottom.

And now it becomes untenable. Mark's two big Tegetthof's are in amongst the bulk of the Italian fleet and begin both killing at will and absorbing damage that would have better been applied elsewhere. You can see that our two big battleships are still a long ways off. They're doing damage but not soaking any off the rest of our fleet.

The Margherita "threads the needle" between the two big k.u.k. Kreigsmarine ships causing good damage, but again, it was ultimately insignificant.

David's squadron of Radezky's have a fine round of gunnery, sinking a torpedo boat and two of my small cruisers 1-2-3.We did manage to sink another of Charles' battleships.

By this time, the Italians had had enough. We were down to two torpedo boats without torpedoes, a cruiser, a burning small battleship and two large virginal battleships. The AH still had five battleships in very good condition. The Italians broke off and headed back home.

A great win for David, Mark and Charles! Stay close together helped them a lot compared to the relative disarray of the Italians. Mike and I will disagree forever, but I think he should have dove his ships into the heart of the enemy like Z and I did. Regardless, it was a great time and there's a lot to be said for putting that many battleships on the tabletop at once!

David and Mark both got two wins on the day, Charles and Mike got one each while Ziggy and I each had two losses. Boooo! 😁

Be well and good gaming!

That's Italian!

I finished up the itsy bitsy 1/6000 Italian ships this week. As usual, they were easy to paint and just a joy to work on.

Looking forward to their meeting with the Austro Hungarians in a month or so!