Arkham gaming

Had some nice gaming sessions at the opposite ends of the time spectrum at Arkham Asylum this weekend.

On the one hand there was a quick, 45- or 50-minute game of Memoir '44 on Friday where my Germans were able to make short work of a large force of Russians during our continuing grand campaign game. Even though Tony's Russians had son many troops they overlapped the enire baseline by two ove rand each side and had two more reinforcements the Germans were just hot on the dice and had pretty decent cards to back them up as they rolled to a 6-2 victory.

On the other hand all day Sunday was spent in a grand campaign of another sort as we played Axis & Allies 1940 Global rules using the Alpha +3 revisions. Three fellows from the Hartford group came down to play myself and Roy at Arkham. Two of the Hartford gamers played the Axis, with one controlling Italy and Germany and the other Japan. A Hartford colleague controlled the British and the French, Roy handled the Russians and I handled the USA, ANZAC and China.

To make a long story short, I think things went relatively satisfactory for the Soviets (Moscow was at least 2 turns away from falling when we ended on Turn 5), the ANZACs (Homeland safe, fleet just took Okinawa) USA (large fleet parked off Japan, troop convoys forming in USA, Philippines never fell) and China (Almost all territory liberated) but this didn;t make up for a series of disasters involving Britain. The British player was aware of the threat of a Germa

+n Sea Lion on Turn 3 but he forgot to move the destroyer he intended to sacrifice to block the North Sea approaches. This, of course, created a cascade of negative effects elsewhere, despite the fact that Britain recaptured London on the next turn. Perhaps the most damaging effect was that Italy was basically left alone to rampage throughout Africa and the Middle East. Italy's economy got up to 50 + bonuses and Italian troops were as far south as the Belgian Congo and as far east as Western India at game end! The Japanese essentially abandoned much in the way of effort against the US and China to concentrate on the British and managed to take India on Turn 5. This second blow caused the Allies to concede, as we judged this was not a recoverable situation. While the Soviets could hold out to turn 7 or maybe even 8, there was no prospect of relief for them even then and the German juggernaut was just gathering stean and had substantial Italian troops available for devastating one-two punches against Russia. I had some hope of the US and ANZAC taking Japan by turn 8 or 9, but this would have been far too late as the Germans were poised to take London AGAIN on turn 6. With the fall of Moscow (and necessarily the third Soviet city as well) the Axis would win a European victory on Turn 6, long before the US plans could bear fruit.

A sea of green US pieces surrounding Japan does no good as disasters elsewhere doom the Allies cause.

It was good playing against such experienced Axis players, however. I picked up a lot and have some ideas of what to do for next time. We were really hurt by the British error, which negated some pretty good play on the part of the Soviets. I didn't feel too bad about how I was doing but the problem for the US is that it's hard to start to have a game impact unless the Brits can hold out.

Overall, though, it was a good game. I don't know when we'll do another Arkham Global 1940, but we may make a trip up to the hartford group's "Bunker" this spring.

2010 game purchases in review

I bought an unusually large number of new games in 2010 -- at least a baker's dozen -- and even more unusually, I played the majority of them! This is a welcome change from years past when i had high levels of purchases that didn;t make it to the table. Its been my experience that a game that doesn't make it to the table the first year I have it rarely make it later on.

In alphabetical order here are the complete new games I bought in 2010:

Arnhem: The Farthest Bridge - 0 plays. This is part of the new series of folio games published by Decision Games that are basically remakes of old SPI classics. The maneuver unit order of battle and map are identical to the old 1975 SPI Arnhem game, but there's a new game system with some significant rules changes. I bought this one in order to get a sense as to whether these represent enough of an improvement over the old game to warrant a purchase. I picked this one because I have more than a hundred Hexwar.com games under my belt using the old game for comparison. I like how some of the new rules look but final evaluation depends on getting this rather old-school hex-and-counter game played.

Axis & Allies Europe 1940 - 3 plays. I've only played this in conjucntion with last year's A&A Pacific 1940 as part of the epic Global A&A 1940 scenario but I've had a blast. I think the global game is big enough to mitigate some of the gamier aspects of the A&A system and yet simple enough to be a viable gateway, club, convention and game store experience. I expect more plays in 2011.

Battle Above the Clouds - 0 plays. This is the latest interation of the Great Campaigns of the American Civil War series, moving to the Western theater. I'm not entirely sure I like the new graphics, but until I get a chance to play it I can't be sure. This game was gifted to me by the widow of my good friend Mark Perry who died late last year. He had pre-ordered this game and when it arrived his wife decidedto give it to me rather than send it back. I do hope I getthe chance to play this one this year.

Battle Cry 150th Anniversary Edition - 6 plays. This update of the original Commands & Colors system game is one of my favorites for the year. I think it hits a sweet spot for gaming with newer and more casual wargamers and is an excellent intorduction to the system. This will undoubtedly hit the table a lot over this coming year as we start moving into the 150th anniversary era.

Battles of Napoleon: The Eagle and the Lion - 2 plays. This is one of the interesting trio of Napoleonic battle games that game out this year. It's probably the most involved of the bunch and has a real miniatures feel to it. I expect to get more plays in with this one over the coming year, although probably not qite as much as Napoleon's War and Commands & Colors; Napoleonics due to the lengthier playing time.

Commands & Colors: Napoleonics - 4 plays. This highly anticipated Borg title was well worth the wait. There are a lot of interesting twists to the system and it's a blast to play. The rules for squares in particular are interesting. Guaranteed to see more plays this year.

Cthulhu Dice - 0 plays. This trivial filler game surprisingly hasn't hit the table yet because thematically it's a little problematical for family play or with some of the more casual game groups I play with. I do expect to get a play or two in but it probably won't be played as much as it might have with a less grim theme.

Fires of Midway - 0 plays. I'm also surprised I haven't gotten this played yet. The stars just haven't aligned right, I guess, although that would probably be a more appropriate excuse for Cthulhu Dice. Still, it's one of my favorite topics and seems fairly quick to play, so I think it will get played before too long.

Gettysburg - 4 plays. This might be the surprise hit of 2010, getting played four times on three different sessions. It's slightly more approachable than Martin Wallace's Waterloo, which is similar. I expect to play this again this year as well.

Heroscape Master Set - Battle for the Underdark - 5 plays. It's hard to believe, but Heroscape started off the year with a new master set, pumped out three new Dungeons & Dragons-themed expansions -- and then died! It's too bad, but there's enough Heroscape stuff in my closet to keep me busy for years, the D&D foray added some interesting new rules (treasure glyphs, shadow spaces and Uncommon Heros) and I'm not even convinced that Heroscape is gone for good.

King Philip's War - 2 plays. This game prompted an unusual amount of mainstream press attention for a standard wargame when a newspaper journalist ginned up a little controversy about the game's topic among New England Indian tribes. The game itself is a nice little design with some interesting strategic decisions for players and opening a window to view an important, if obscure, episode in U.S. history. I hope to play it a few more times this year as there are some strategic lines I'd like to explore.

Napoleon's War - The 100 Days - 5 plays. The first out of the gate among the 2010 crop of Napoleonic battle games, this one builds off the popular system used in Hold the Line and the Wars for America series. Similar in scale and playing time to C&C: N, it will be interesting to see if it can hold its own now that the Borg game is out. It does have an advantage in set-up time over CC:N with the pre-printed maps and some find Borg's card-based section-restricted command system too artificial. I expect to get some more plays of this in as well, although I have to admit that CC:N has the edge with me.

Persian Incursion - 0 plays. By far the most serious wargame I bought in 2010. Persian Incursion examines the possibility of an Israeli military strike against Iran's nuclear program. This arrived late in the year but I'm trying to get a couple of plays in soon. While a stand-alone game that doesn't require Harpoon 4 to play, it's still pretty involved and not just a casual sit-down game.

Four-day Axis & Allies Global 1940 knock-down, drag-out marathon

Wow.

Well, the redoubtable Game Store Tony and I started a game of Axis & Allies Global 1940 (the combined A&A Europe 1940 and A&A Pacific 1940 mega game) on Saturday, continued Sunday, continued again Tuesday and finally called it on Turn 9 on Wednesday.

I'm definitely more comfortable with the naval/air powers such as the USA, Britain or Japan than I am with the land powers like Soviet Russia and the Germans.

I played the Axis, so I controlled the Germans, Italians and Japanese while Tony had all the Allies.

I wanted to make sure the Germans did the necessary deed that didn't happen in the last two games I played and I ensured the France fell on Turn 1. Unfortunately I couldn't turn that success into an effective campaign against Russia and I spent the balance of the game in a rough stalemate in the East. I made it partway into Russia but by game end the Soviets were pushing pack and Poland and fallen.

Tony's British did a good job on keeping pressure on Germany's Atlantic front, including invasions of Norway, Holland and Normandy that sometimes were pushed back but ultimately were able to stay ashore once the US arrived to help.

Meanwhile Italy ran rampant throughout the Med and Africa and even made forays as far as southern Russia, Iran and off Madagascar. It was all great fun, but the Allies eventually recovered (that factory in South Africa is a big help to the Allies) and retook most of sub-Saharan Africa. After a seesaw struggle that saw Gibraltar change hands at least five times the Americans sank the Italian navy and made landing attempts at both Southern Italy and Southern France that didn't succeed, but were costly for both sides. The German air forces wiped out some significant U.S. and British naval task forces, but the overall trend was inexorably in the favor of the Allies. While we felt that the Allies were not in a position to take the victory cities needed to win by Turn 11 (which would meet the criteria of the 'America +8' variant that's been suggested) we also felt that eventually they would be able to get them.

The story was somewhat different in the Pacific, where Japan was able to achieve a clear edge in the naval war, eliminating the British and ANZAC fleets and chopping the US down to size. We used the "Alpha Setup" which cuts down the number of aircraft by about half for all sides and makes tweaks to the setup. Hawaii, The Philippines and the Dutch East Indian colonies all fell. The Japanese invaded Australia but were not in a position to really follow up their success so the Australians were able to eventually liberate their own territory. It's very difficult to take out a player country unless you take the capital early. The ability to build new troops right at the scene of action helps a defender a lot.

On the other hand the Chinese were able to liberate almost their entire homeland with British help. Things were somewhat in doubt in the Pacific as it looked like it would be very hard for the Allies to rebuild their naval power in the face of Japanese sea superiority, but it would be equally hard for the Japanese to make a return to mainland Asia given the vast hordes of Chinese and British eastern forces. The probable outcome was a stalemate until a decision was reached on the European board.

This was the first game where we used the R&D rules, with the slight modification that you kept your R&D dice after a failed roll and could keep rolling until some success was found. The Italian investment in a couple of R&D dice was a waste as they never came up and the German investment in three R&D dice was a disappointment as well, gaining "radar" which improves the AA guns. As the Allies never tried a strategic bombing raid this had no game effect.

The Japanese and US investments, in contrast, paid off handsomely. A total of 3 dice bought three breakthroughs! While the US "rockets" never came into play the "Jets" were very helpful to the US, basically making Tac Bombers obsolete for them and playing a big role in several battles. Meanwhile the Japanese got "Improved Shipyards" which aided their achievement of naval superiority considerably.

Overall it was a great experience, although rather exhausting for both players. Because there was no "down time" for each player while others were moving we found that the game moved more slowly than it does with multiple players.

We're going to shoot for another Global 1940 come January.

Ellis Con Axis & Allies Global 1940 session report

Well, I spent all of Ellis Con playing one game, but what a game!

I think the Global 1940 Axis & Allies is a terrific game experience. The scale of the game mitigates some of the things about A&A I didn''t care for in the past -- especially some strange geography and an unfortunate luck factor. These seem much less of a problem with Global.

This was the first game I took part in where everybody had some level of experience with at least the Axis & Allies system and several players had played Global before.

On the Axis side the German player was a fellow who had definitely played A&A before and I think he said he'd played the Global game once. He was joined by a gentleman who played Italy and Japan and had played Global before. While I hadn't met him before, he was well-known to some other participants, who liked to tease him for his "deliberate" (slow) playing style. I worried a bit about this given how big a game Global is, but in the end everyone else seemed to make u for it with speedy play and time-saving steps like figuring out their build ahead of time and some powers moving at the same time as others when they were not affecting each other. We were able to play seven turns, which was enough to reach a decision.

The Italo-Japanese player had brought his teen nephew to the game and he wanted to have fun beating up on uncle so he took the US. While young, he handled his nation very well, as we'll see.
I took the British because I wanted to have a hand in both ends of the board. Our Russian player had played A&A before, but never Global, but he had an excellent appreciation of the fundamentals of Soviet strategy in A&A. Our final player was also experienced in Global and he took the trio of "minor" powers, France, China and the ANZACs, Having an experienced good player for those minor countries ended up playing a big role int the outcome as well.

The game started with in a familiar way, as the German player made the same mistake I made as the German player in my last game -- failing to ensure that France fell on Turn 1. In my case I misjudged the forces I needed, but in this game the German was intent on taking out the British navy and he launched a huge air and sea campaign over the next few turns that saw a lot of drama, including an invasion of Scotland! He did succeed in gutting British naval power, but at the cost of his own and a huge chunk of his air force as well. Scotland was recaptured so no permanent damage was done to the British.

Naturally the Germans had to let someplace else suffer and that place was France. While Normandy fell easily enough, the German attack on France proper -- already a marginal affair -- suffered a huge setback when he failed to roll a single hit in his attack. The French were much luckier and nearly wiped out the German infantry in the attacking force. Unwilling to start taking hits on tanks and Stukas the German called off the attack.

There was some discussion over whether or not to simply reset the game at that point, given the poor German opening, but the Axis players declined. The German player was satisfied with the damage he did to the British fleet and the Italo-Japanese had yet to move so the Axis pressed on. The Italians, when their turn came, joined in the attack on France, taking southern France amphibiously while using their navy to crush the French Navy. The Japanese launched a ground offensive against China, beginning a multi-turn campaign that was well handled by the China player. At this point I should mention that we were using the "Alpha" variant setup for the Pacific board which reduces the air power of all the Pacific countries (which were disproportionate) and makes some other changes, including a beefier Chinese army.

When the French turn came around we started to see some of the effects of a surviving France. The French had money and a chance to build, so they bought a chunk more infantry to make the second German attempt as costly as possible. And the French sent their one fighter to attack the Italy's unguarded merchant fleet of two transports! The Italy player had forgotten that France had a fighter (naturally, since normally France doesn't have one by the time its move comes around). After sinking Italy's merchant fleet the fighter landed in Malta. From there it was destined to be a thorn in Italy's side for the rest of the game when it joined the British forces iN Egypt. The hero French fighter survived the game, as matter of fact!

The failure to capture France put the Germans a turn behind schedule, and the destruction of Italy's merchant fleet likewise put Italy a turn behind schedule in the Med.

To make a long story short, the Italian effort in North Africa was stalemated. By the time they rebuilt their transports and tried to take Egypt it was strongly held. The Italian Turn 3 invasion was crushed (with notable help from the sharpshooting French fighter which killed 2 of the four invaders) and after that the British won the buildup race, shipping aircraft via Gibraltar and from South Africa and eventually joined by troops from Iran and east Africa after Italian East Africa and Iraq were dispatched. When the Americans joined the war they sent some troops into unconquered French Algeria.

Stymied in the Med, the Italians sent substantial ground forces to aid their German ally, who had run into a solid wall of Soviets. As seen in the last game, the 1-turn delay in the German timetable meant that the Russians actually declared war on the Germans first. The delayed German Barbarossa was also critically short on air support, most of the Luftwaffe having been expended against the Royal Navy. The Soviets were able to blunt the German attack and were slowly gaining an edge, thanks in no small part to the large Soviet air force!

Meanwhile in the Pacific, after a few turns of expensive fighting against China the Japanese decided they had better grab the resource-rich Dutch territories while there was still time, so on Turn 3 they moved.

The lack of Japanese pressure, however, meant that the US, Pacific British and ANZACs were able to build up their naval forces and before long the Japanese found themselves in a five-front war! Besides the undefeated Chinese they faced newly aggressive Russians and three navies. When a Japanese naval task force ventured within range the British gladly expended their Pacific navy to take it out. Both fleets were destroyed, leaving a lonely Japanese merchant to be dispatched by a French destroyer! Meanwhile the US eventually brought an overwhelming force to bear against Japan itself -- despite a game attempt by uncle to sucker nephew into a premature attack. Vast navies and air forces (At least five loaded US carriers, three US battleships and other surface ships and a heavy bomber against two Japanese carriers, tow BBs and air units and other ships) clashed over Japan. When it was over there were still three damaged US battleships and two cruisers holding the sea zone and Japan was down to one task force off the coast of China -- and that task force was being stalked by an equal-sized ANZAC task force of a loaded CV, a BB, a CA, a DD and a Heavy bomber within range! The ANZAC player was quite willing to follow the example of his allies and lose his fleet to destroy the last Japanese fleet.

At this point the Axis players admitted defeat. Germany was stalemated on the Russian border, the Italians were about to lose their navy on the next British turn to a strike by 5 heavy bombers, 3 Tacs and four fighters (the British had meanwhile been conducting a strategic bombing campaign against Germany, which has 19 damage on its main industry site. Japan was being pushed back in China and southeast Asia and had lost 3/4 of its fleet. With no good news anywhere it was time to call it.

We started at about 10:30 a.m. and finished at 8:30 p.m. with a half hour lunch break and another half hour or so pause during the auction so total playing time was between 8 and 9 hours.

Blundering on a Global Scale

So our second game of Global Axis & Allies 1940 at Arkham Asylum was another success, although certainly marked by some inexpert play -- especially on my part.

I took Germany because I felt that too much of the game rides on a sufficiently aggressive German player to give it to a complete newbie. The other two Axis powers were controlled by a new player, while another young Arkham denizen controlled all the Allies at first -- although he was eventually joined by a player experienced in other versions of the game who took overt he US -- which had a big impact on the outcome of the game, as will be seen.

The Axis got off to a bad start because I misjudged how much force I would need to ensure that France fell -- and then proceeded to roll pretty badly as well and so France DID NOT FALL on Turn 1! This through off my timing enough that I wasn't quite ready to invade Russia by Turn 4 and the Russians actually declared war on Germany. Meanwhile the war with the British was more or less inconclusive, although the Italians made some decent progress in the Med area. Nothing spectacular, but probably sufficient in a normal game.

Where things went worse for the Axis was in the Pacific. The Japanese player's initial intention was to concentrate on China but on Turn 2 he changed his mind and rashly attacked everything in sight. He was tempted by a chance to pull a Pearl Harbor on the US fleet in Hawaii and did so, but it was rather costly> He also attacked Russia and the British, though, which had the effect of dispersing his efforts too much. China, meanwhile, was unsubdued.

The worst effect was to give the US a couple extra turns of Bonus production which they used to good effect building another huge fleet. And on Turn 5 the US made their move, sending a huge naval force to meet the Japanese main fleet in Japanese waters. Unfortunately for the Axis, the Japanese had neglected to leave a garrison on the home islands and the US sent a small invasion force. Victory in the Sea battle would mean the Fall of Japan!

The battle was pretty even, but the US had just enough extra firepower to prevail in the end and Japan fell.

We called the game at that point. While Japan would probably be able to retake the homeland, it would do so only by essentially abandoning China. Meanwhile the US had 137 IPC to spend on building a new invasion fleet while Japan would have trouble beefing up its defenses. (A key rule in 1940 is that a captured Major Industrial Site is reduced to a minor site, which would limit Japan to building just 3 units in Japan until it was upgraded. It's doubtful Japan would have either the time or the money to do that before the US was back.

If the European Axis had been doing better it might have been worth playing on, but as noted the Germans were just starting to get into it with Russia and overall the European Axis situation was, at best, mediocre.

Everyone involved enjoyed themselves and there were calls for a rematch, so I will try to schedule a Round 3 for the Global A&A 1940 before year's end. I think I may try to schedule a warmup 1942 game the week before the global 1940 game to build up player expertise in the system a little bit. Ideally the German, Japanese, Russian, American and British players should be experienced, I think. I think ANZAC, China, France and Italy provide good entry-level commands for new players.