Gunship 4 player!

Happy belated Easter! As is the habit of my family, we had a rather large gathering with lots of good food and fun times. This also means that there will be board games aplenty! We managed to get in a game of Zombicide which is always a great deal of fun. If you have never played it I highly recommend giving it a shot as it can be very tense.

But before that game we managed to get in a game of Gunship. One of our younger siblings wanted to learn how to play so we opted for a four player free for all. This game was absolutely chaotic and a blast to play! With it being our second game, set up was quick and easy and we even got a little more random with our initial set ups. Once the dice were rolled to see who goes first, the carrier round, which is the carriers shooting at each other, works around the table with each player picking which carrier they are going to shoot on this turn. Though you would suspect ganging up, you also don’t want to leave any one opponent too strong while everyone else is battling it out.

Experience showed with us playing a lot more cautiously with out gunships, pulling them back for repairs at a fairly regular rate where as we were a bit more reckless with them in the first game. Lots of back and forth action, trying to decide when best to attack or when to hold back which also resulted in two gunships getting destroyed when their carriers exploded. My gunship suffered enough damage to actually explode but in this game you are only out when your carrier goes down. Though I expected this to be pointless it actually made the end of the game to be rather tense. Since all of the carrier damage is card driven from the deck, there is no telling how much damage could be dealt. The last turn I was sitting on four hull points with my brother on two hull points.

I drew a repair card; effectively a missed shot and my sibling drew a single damage on me. He then launched a torpedo attack and a bombing run that sealed the game. It was a truly awesome finish! And it also illustrated how the game can really go either way due to the cards.It have enjoyed both times that I have had this game on the table and I really expect that this will continue to hit the table for the foreseeable future.

More Blue Max

Managed to get the game back on the table during the sibling game night which made me really excited as I am a fan of the era and jump at the chance to play a game with plotting and dice throwing. Lucky for me Blue max fits that bill perfectly. Unfortunately one of our siblings had to work so there was only three of us to play the game. We elected for a free for all, everyone flying Fokker Dr. 1 to try and keep things even. It actually worked out rather well.

 Apparently I am easy to read. I was flying the Baron.

 Trying to drag the other plan into the fight.

 A surprise head to head that saw engine damage for the black Dr. 1

 Attempting to outrun the black Dr.1 and score a kill. Opened myself up trying to get a lock and was shot down with a pilot kill and a broken wing.

 The end of the game was a series of circles, both pilots trying to outguess the other.

Black attempted to stall and spun the plane. Yellow circled and shot him down!

Was a fun, sometimes tense game. With the older siblings it is almost a game of guess if they guessed your move and turns out to be a lot trickier than expected. My brother in the black Dr. 1 seemed to always be right on my tail or close enough to be tailing me most of the game. My sister-in-law in the yellow Dr. 1 spent the first part of the game maneuvering while we battled, resulting in a wild chase across the board. In the end she managed to come out on top with barely a plane left to get home. The prospect of trying to get all six players on the board is quite alluring now! Bring on the chaos!

Blue Max AAR

Blue Max, a WWI air combat game by Stratelibri, is apparently a reprint/update of the original Blue Max. Though I have never played the original, I have played a number of aircraft combat games using plotted, sometimes hidden movement, and have always been a fan. When I happened across this version of it I was excited for a chance to try a hex based version and the lovely pieces were too good to pass up.

For our first play test, my younger sibling (my usual test subjects) elected for a white Nieuport 24 while I opted for the Fokker Dr. 1, Red Baron style of course! After running over the rules briefly with him, I opted for us to set up along the long edge of the map, hoping for a close, fast game. We offset our starting so that we didn’t have to just fly straight at each other and plotted our movements. For the most part we both zipped across the board, trying to close the distance to see who could draw first blood. The point goes to my sibling who managed to get in a few shots against my side when I failed to guess his abrupt pivot. A few couple moves later suddenly found my cross-hairs on his tail which resulted in the shredding of his rudder and a spiral to the ground. One kill for the Baron!

 First Blood!

The rudder gets shot to pieces.

There was enough interest that we managed to get a second game in, this time with four players. Got to love have numerous younger siblings that also enjoy board games! Side Allies, two of my youngest siblings and my regular opponents for wargames, opted for Nieuport 24s while Side Axis, myself and yet another sibling, selected Fokker Dr. 1s. This time we set up with our planes along the short board edge to allow a longer distance for maneuvering and plotting. Both sides being eager for the fight, we effectively flew directly towards each other, only truly maneuvering when the distance was down to a couple hexs. As this was still our initial play through we opted not to try altitude rules which allowed for us to ignore collisions, a good thing when four planes are darting around a six hex spread. No one could get a bead on a target until suddenly there were two planes head to head with only a single hex separating them. The dice flew and the Allies got the brunt of it, the Nieuport 24 taking enough damage to destroy the engine which resulted in a glide and crash in the following round, counting as a shot down plane.

 The white Nieuport is spinning, taking extra damage.

 A dangerous head to head that saw the Allied plane going down.

 Things get tense!

A fatal error is made.

The remaining Allied plane, a familiar white 24, went into evasive actions, attempting to outmaneuver the closing Axis Dr. 1s. Unfortunately he positioned himself directly before the Baron, against piloted by me, resulting in another burst of fire to an already damaged plane. Both rudder and wing received enough damage to be considered destroyed the Nieuport spiraled down to the earth.

Both games were a great deal of fun and received praise from the siblings as being simple but fun, something we really enjoy as it allows everyone to join in on the fun despite the age range present in our large family. I am hoping to get this one to the table regularly and add in some of the more advanced rules as we go. 

Frontiers: Liberty or Death AAR

 Frontiers: Liberty or Death, produced by Asomdee, is a miniature game without the use of miniatures, a curious concept when I first came across it. As can be seen by my previous posts, I am a fan of miniature games though I have tended towards making my own pieces and/or going the abstract route by simply using bases to represent where the forces are on the table. I suspect that that might be one of the reasons why I considered looking into this game. The other reason was that sometimes you just want a light wargame that you can throw on the table. This turned out to be just the thing.

The pieces are punch-out cardboard and beautiful, with all of the information you need for the piece right on the disc. No need to look up things in an army book, just glance at the piece for the information that you need. This really helps to speed up the game which is really helpful for the younger siblings.

Since I was hoping to get a taste of as much of the game as I could the first round through, we selected a scenario that had both sides seeking out vital information that had to be picked up in one building and moved to another. Army deployment alternates with each side placing one unit until all units have been placed along their respective edge. We both elected for similar tactics, splitting our forces to each side to secure the buildings which held the objectives. Our tanks and heavy armor, two to a side, fired shots back and forth with minimal success thanks to some rather poor dice rolling, leaving most of the good fighting to the various types of infantry units running about.

Each army also has a deck of cards, four cards in hand at the start of each turn that can be used to improve the results of dice rolls, alter orders or heal up units on the battlefield. These actually have quite an impact on engagements if played at the right time, shifting a loss to a tie or even a success. What started out as a rush for the objectives soon turned into a slugfest with both sides taking pot shots across the table. We called the game after the death of last infantry unit for my sibling as his tanks were unable to pick up the objective and therefore could not when.

It was fun but a little messy, some of the rules were a little wonky to read and contradicted some of the pieces on the board but we sorted it out and had some fun. I look forward to getting it on the table again soon and perhaps picking up a second copy as it is selling quite cheap at the moment and who could say no to having massive armies to play with!

Gunship: First Strike AAR

First up for games this year is Gunship: First Strike by Escape Pod Games. Apparently this game was funded through kickstarter and was widely successful in its campaign. Unfortunately the producer had to focus on his business and the game slipped into possibly becoming unsupported. It seems that 2016 will see a renewal of the game by the producer with many exciting new things to come.

I managed to pick up the base game, Gunship: First Strike, as well as its expansion Afterburners and several additional components when they went on sale. Let me start off by saying the art work is awesome and makes me feel like I am living out the action of The Last Starfighter! I cracked out the base game during the new weekly game night and we dove in feet first with a four player game which turned out to be simply awesome!

Each player is in charge of a gunship, hence the name of the game, which they can customize using a number of cards the represent different weapons. There are blasters, ion cannons and bombs which are used to attack the enemy carrier. The main goal is to destroy the enemy carrier which can happen from the carriers shooting each other as well as your gunship making attack runs with torpedoes and bombs. To add to the chaos, you have a wing of fighters that can attack other fights and harass your opponent’s gunship.

Though there is free-for-all, which requires each person to also have a carrier board, we went for a 2 vs. 2 as it was our first time playing. I have to say that this game is wonderfully balanced and you really can’t be sure who is going to win until the end of the game. Side 1, which consisted of my sibling and me, faced off against side two, my other sibling and sister-in-law. Side 1 started off in what seemed to be a lead, our carrier doing more damage as we whittled down the enemy fighters, even managing a couple of runs on the carrier. Side 2 matched blow for blow but it seemed they were on the back foot for the first half of the game.

Thanks to an awesome ion shot and a series of crazy events, the pendulum swung swiftly to Side 2 with my sister-in-law launching an all out attack that resulted in our carrier exploding, ending the game. We played with the basic setup on the ships and may have gotten a rule or two wrong, normal when it is the first play through, but the game was still exceedingly awesome, really encouraged working together and plotting out who could do the most damage with initiative. I really look forward to getting the game out onto the table again in the near future! Hopefully with pictures next time!

New Life in 2016!

So I have come to the conclusion that I need to get better at blogging. But I will try to get better now that life in general has become far more stable than it was last year. For a start I know have a weekly game night so that should help things! I know I don’t have any steady readers but here is to good things in the months to come!

Mechwarrior! An after action report. Game 1.

After finding some Mechwarrior pieces on sale, I figured I would go ahead and give the game a try. Who can say no to giant robots beating the heck out of each other! Using just the starter set and some Heroscape tile pieces (So many uses for those!) we set up a quick match.

I just love how easy it is to build an intriguing map with a collection of Heroscape tiles! And the hexes help the younger siblings figure out distance on the fly. I will be commanding the blue squad, BBJ the red squad. Both are Mercenary groups in the game universe.









My opponent for the day was one of my younger siblings, BillyBobJoe (BBJ) as he likes to go by. He's usually up for a good game and doesn't mind when things happen to go south for him. That's the joys of playing a game with him. When things start blowing up he's still having a good time! 
Squad Lists:

Blue Team:

Mangonel Mech "Copperhead"

Zibler Fast Strike Tank

Salamander Battle Armor

Undine Battle Armor

LRM Battery

Red Team:

Jade Hawk Mech "Blitz"

Sekhmet Assault Vehicle

Fenrir Battle Armor

PAL Suit

Pathfinders

The After Action Report!

LRM and Undine move out along the left. The LRM would fail to do any damage the majority of the game!

Pathfinders and Fenrir move in response, negotiating the terrain for cover.

The Zibler and Mangonel move to the right, the Mangonel taking a perch that would prove a strong tactical move.

The Jade Hawk and Sekhmet initially start to follow the pathfinders but shift, feeling the Mangonel is more tempting.

The Sekhmet thank rushes forward to try and take on the Mangonel, bring it into range of the Mech and Zibler.

The Sekhmet pays the price, exploding under the combined fire of the Mangonel and Zibler! The PAL suit squad watches from cover.

Fenrir and PAL units move forward in hopes of avenging the fallen Sekhmet. Jade Hawk follows after, eager for a shot at the Mangonel. The Undine move into position to lend fire support.

All hell breaks loose! Guns blazing all both sides, the dice fall short for the Red side, this trio taking a lot of punishment while only mildly damaging the Zibler in response.

The Jade Hawk takes a beating from the Mangonel but it would be the Undine battle armor (infantry) that would seal it's fate! The Pal Suit and Fenrir head for the hills in the background.

Game ends with the Pathfinders surrendering in the shadow of the Mangonel.

The game ended up being a little one sided due to some poor dice rolling, though it did effect both sides over the course of the game. All in all it was a good deal of fun and I look forward to having another go with the siblings in the near future. I have a second starter set so a two vs two battle could be in the pipe!