David R. Moody - Oct 13, 2005 12:54 pm (#10959 Total: 10970) Last played: Gringo, Downtown, ASL, Band of Heroes, Grant Takes Command, War of the Ring, Wellington, Lock 'n' Load (ANZAC expansion), Brandywine (GMT), B-17, Settlers of Catan, Down in Flames. Reading: The Two Towers (J.R.R. Tolkien). Last night at Endgame in Oakland, CA, Joe Oppenheimer and I hooked up for a couple quick games. First up was Band of Heroes, the new release from Mark H. Walker that takes his excellent and popular tactical system (first seen in Lock 'n' Load, which covered Vietnam) to Normandy. I had first seen and played this game at ConQuest back on Labor Day Weekend, and had been totally zonked after four hourse of sleep so I didn't get into it as much as I would have liked. This time I was more awake, and the maps didn't seem as garish. Joe had selected an unusual scenario for us to try the game out: a lone American hero from the 101st Airborne had parachuted into Normandy on D-Day, not far from a handful of Germans having a party into the wee hours at a local watering hole. He had to find his comrades and get moving toward St. Mere Eglise, while the Germans had to stop the gathering Screaming Eagles. I, as the Americans, got VP for any units exited off the east map edge, while Joe's Germans got VP for eliminating US units. The uniqueness came in HOW more American paras arrived. Each turn, as my first action, I had to roll on the Clicker table (the Amis had clickers which they used to signal each other). I had a 50-50 chance of finding my own troops, or of activating Germans. In another interesting touch, I got to deploy any German reinforcements, while Joe got to deploy any Americans who happened by (both within two hexes of the clicking unit). Furthermore, if German reinforcements arrived one turn, a modifier was applied to make it more likely Americans would arrive the following turn, and vice versa. There were other special rules to simulate the darkness and confusion of the beginning of the invasion. So we deployed our handful of troops and had at it. I got an American half-squad (toting a BAR) and leader on the first click, coming down the road. They took up station in some woods along the road as the hero, using his special ability for a double activation, headed off to the east toward St. Mere Eglise. Joe's Germans, their party disturbed, headed towards the American positions. The US leader clicked his clicker, but attracted another party of Germans, who blundered into the road in front of them. The Amis tried to ambush them, firing at close range, but failed. More Americans arrived, also crossing the road and running into Germans, who fired on them, wounding the leader, then closing to melee, wiping out and scattering the survivors. A small firefight ensued in the dark woods along the road, as some of the Germans now headed east to deal with the Ami hero who had gone that way. That hero, meanwhile, had tried to find more of his fellows, but, thanks to what would be the start of bad dierolling for me, only found another hero. The first hero then scooted off the map (1 VP for me) as the new hero continued signalling. I got two straight German reinforcement rolls, but fortunately both generated No Reinforcements. I really wish I had gotten more Amis--my plan was to generate more then send them off the map quickly for VPs, but the dice betrayed me. With the approach of more Germans, I sent that hero off the map as well for two VPs, just as the remaining Americans back along the road were losing the fight (thanks to two straight 12s on morale checks--DOH!). So I lost this little vignette of the Normandy fighting, 3.5 VP to 2--a couple Paras got off the map, but the Germans wiped out one and a half squads and two leaders. A fun and interesting game. There were also a number of random events we could have gotten (Frenchmen showing up, para caught in a nearby tree, that sort of thing) but did not due to the vagaries of the dice. At any rate, we will definitely play again, and I'll probably buy my own copy once I can afford it. After that, we completed the Battle of the Bismarck Sea mini-campaign for Down in Flames. We just had the second March 3 mission to fly. I had already sunk all but two of the Japanese transports, losing a B-17 in the March 2 morning mission and a Beaufighter in the March 3 morning mission. My remaining bombers, escorted by a flight of P-38s (one flown by Tommy Lynch--I started out with 3, but Joe flamed one in the morning mission) came at the convoy again, hoping to finish off the two damaged transports and get some destroyers. Joe responded with two flights of Oscars, one flown by an Ace. Skipping over the tactical details, I flamed two Oscars, including the ace (Lynch's wingman got them both, interestingly), while my bombers sank the two transports as well as two destroyers while crippling a third destroyer and slightly damaging (not enough for VP) a fourth. Joe's fighters Damaged one of my B-25s, which was shot down by flak during its bomb run. All other planes made it back safely, though the B-17s in particular were shot up quite a bit. I ended up with 46 VP to Joe's 6, a net of 40, 4 away from Historical and in the Japanese Good/US Bad range. So I bombed and strafed the crap out of the convoy, but not as much as was bombed and strafed out of it historically. If I had sunk two more destroyers (in line with the historical result of 4 DDs lost) and/or didn't lose as many planes, we'd have gotten the historical result. Nicely played on both sides. We called it a night after that. We won't meet again until Nov 2 (Girl Scouts, Joe in NY, first grade potluck) but when we do, we'll most likely try Wellington again, now that we know the rules better.