Trains, snipers and defeat, oh my!

Position at the end of the game

Game Store Tony and I got in a game of Memoir '44 after a long break. This was an Eastern Front game but not part of our official grand campaign.

Instead we played the Kiev scenario from the Campaign Book Vol. 1, primarily because it includes an armored train and snipers. Armored trains are an interesting and unusual unit and the snipers gave me a chance to use the Equipment Pack Miniatures for the first time.

The battle, itself, was one of our closer run affairs, with Tony's Soviets pulling off a 5-4 victory at the end when the armored train finished off the fifth German unit for the win. My Germans had managed to kill off three Russian units and capture Kiev as well, but it wasn't enough.

Often the snipers have proven to be a marginally useful unit in past games but in this one they did a good job picking off pieces, including being the finishing blow for at least one victory medal. But the definite star for the Soviet side was the armored train, which is much more mobile and tougher than a regular artillery unit. In theory it's not as flexible as a regular gun because it's restricted to the train tracks, but in my experience you don't normally see a lot of movement by artillery units in Memoir '44, so overall I'd say an armored train is much better i tn eh game than a regular artillery unit.

The Equipment Pack  pieces are, for the most part, purely eye candy, although a few new units and rule are introduced. Still, the appeal of eye candy in Memoir '44 should not be underestimated, as that's an importamt part of the game's popularity. So the Equipment Pack sniper was an improvement over the perfectly serviceable standard game solution of an ordinary solider marked with a badge.  I went ahead and used the badge, too, but it would only be necessary in case both sides in a scenario had snipers -- a case that I don't think has occurred so far.

Anniversary remembrances ASL 50 evolves to Memoir' 70

During the 50th anniversary years of World War II I made an attempt to play as many games of Advanced Squad Leader on or about the 50th anniversary date as I could. Most of my games were with my regular gaming partner, Carl N., but I got in quite a few with other folks as well.

In order to keep the number of games within a manageable number, I only played "official" Avalon Hill scenarios and made the rule that there would be no "going back," so if  a scenario was published after the date that it would otherwise have been played we didn't go back to do it.

Overall this was reasonably successful as a plan. We made it into the summer of 1944 by late 1995 when personal circumstances cause me to have to more or less abandon regular playing for  a while. We limped on with a few more games in the series over the next few years but eventually I stopped playing much ASL at all. Eventually I even sold off my collection. The only remnant of my ASL days is a copy of the ASL Starter Kit No. 1.

It was an entertaining project, but pulling it off was a product of a certain stage of my life where I had some stability in my schedule that allowed playing a fairly involved game like ASL on a regular basis. This was in my pre-Eurogame heavy duty wargamer phase when I turned down games of Axis & Allies because I wanted to spend my time playing real wargames.

Times change, and so do we, although sometimes in unexpected ways. I've never lost my love of playing "anniversary" games, although I've broadened the scope a bit. This year  is an especially fecund year for such anniversaries -- with the bicentennials of Napoleon's Russian and Spanish campaigns and the War of 1812, the 150th anniversary of the Civil War as well as the 70th anniversary of the World War II campaigns.

A 70th anniversary isn't quite as iconic as 25th, 50th, 75, 100th, 150th or 200th, but that extra five years between a 70th and a 75th anniversary is poignant because so many veterans who are around for the first are gone by the second, so there's an extra level of attention being paid to our vanishing Greatest Generation.

Memoir '44, as it turns out, first appeared almost 10 years ago as part of the commemoration of the 60th anniversary of Normandy. The 60th was notable because it was the last major anniversary when a large number of the veterans would still be with us and in good enough health to travel. An 18-year-old rifleman hitting the beach in June of 1944 was a 78-year-old man by 2004. By 2014 those young men will be 88 years old and by the 75th anniversary  in 2019 they will be in their 90s. If the experience of the World War I vets is any guide, there's some chance a single individual or two might make it all the way to the centennial, but odds are the Normandy invasion will have receded from living memory by that point.

But i have been trying to do commemorative games of Memoir '44, just as I did with ASL before it. I can't play as regularly as I did 20 years ago, and my focus is not so relentlessly devoted to wargames that I'll forego playing anything else. So I haven't tired to religiously play every single Memoir '44 scenario in order or on its anniversary. All that said, I have managed to be pretty close and are just a season behind, although I will probably not make an effort to go back and fill in any gaps.

My tastes have evolved over the years. As I noted, I actually sold off my ASL collection to raise some money and clear out storage space devoted to  a game that I simply wasn't going to play much any more. Memoir '44 was much more in tune with my current realities and interests.  They are, of course, very different games in many ways. Advanced Squad Leader is the byword for a highly complex and realistic simulation wargame -- while there are vociferous debates in places like Boardgame Geek over whether Memoir '44 deserves to be dignified with the title "wargame" at all!

My personal opinion has long been that any "simulation" claims for ASL were overstated. While highly detailed and exhaustively researched, the game system virtually ignores the two most pervasive aspects of tactical combat -- the fog of war and limited command control. Players in ASL have vastly more knowledge of the facts on the ground than any actual tactical commander did (not even excepting today's electronically enhanced 'Net-centric' warrior) and exact micro-managed control over their units. It was, however, and is an extremely engrossing game to play and does provide a tremendous amount of insight into small unit tactics and weapons of World War II.

Similarly, I think the simulation-based critics of Memoir '44 overstate the case against this wargame. The card-based game system does a lot to counteract both the player's God's eye view and a God-like control over combatants so that one can make a legitimate argument it's more like an actual command experience than ASL is.

Both games are very ambitious in scope, however, and both cover nearly every major facet of World War II combat, every theater and most major and quite a few very obscure parts of the war. As such, both are very effective educational tools and appropriate commemoratives for that conflict. The vast scope of World war II seems very unlikely to ever re-occur. Global world-wide war involving mass conventional armies and navies seems no more likely than seeing a a re-occurrence of Roman legions or fleets of sailing ships with brass cannon. There may be another global war, but its form will be utterly unlike World War II., for good or ill.

I'm two decades older than the young man who played ASL so assiduously  I'm just as interetsed in playing a good and enjoyable wargame as I was then, although admittedly more amendable to one that I can set up play and finish in an hour or two and doesn't require referencing a thick rule book every five minutes. Memoir '44 is more my style these days. But it is still a wargame.

Now THIS is what I'm talking about -- Memoir '44

This summer, August apparently, Days of Wonder is going to have a new expansion for Memoir '44 -- and a doozy it is shaping up to be!

It's essentially a box of figures, with 17 new scenarios for using them. And what cool stuff it is, with Polish cavalry, French infantry and Finnish ski troops. All sorts of armored vehicles and new artillery pieces. It has a half dozen plastic landing craft! (No more counters and badges).  Therea re also reissues of the Tiger tanks, trucks and other pieces from some earlier expansions that are now out of print. There's more than 180 figures all told. Maybe the days of a box of plastic aren't quite over yet.

Mussolini as Schrödinger's cat

The Storch lands next to the hotel in preparation for evacuating Mussolini (represented by the German Victory Medal) under the protection of Otto Skorzeny (represented by the Green Battle Star counter). The landing site is well-guarded by German paratroopers, but note that each unit has lost a figure. At upper left is a unit of Italians (here depicted using Russian figures) trying to stop the evacuation.

Was he alive, or was he dead? It all depended upon when you looked, Thursday as Game Store Tony and I took a short break from our Russian Campaign to play a scenario from the new Memoir '44 Campaign Book 2, specifically the Rescue of Mussolini scenario from the Air Aces campaign.

I really wanted to try this one out because it's quite different from the typical Memoir '44 scenario. For one thing, victory is not based on medals -- but simply on Mussolini's fate. If he's rescued the Germans win, if not, they lose.

There are quite a few special rules and a chance to use pieces that don't see much use otherwise, such as the Storch liaison plane and paradrops.

The Italian force is comprised of eight regular infantry units deployed in four pairs across the hill and mountain hex adorned map. Mussolinui, himself, is represented by a German Objective marker in the Prison Camp Hex.

The German force is comprised of six elite infantry units which enter via the Paradrop procedure, which in Memoir '44 involves actually dropping the pieces from about a foot above the map! After they land the Germans can give a marker to one of the units representing the legendary German commando leader Otto Skorzeny. The fnal element of the German force is the Storch Liaison plane, which must be used to evacuate Mussolini.

On our first go around, the raid was pretty much a disaster. Two of the six German units were destroyed while landing and the others were scattered. While Skorzeny was able to lead two units in an assault on the prison that liberated Mussolini, the Italians seemed to have no shortage of useful cards, and were able to react energetically. A mad dash for some safe spot was unsuccessful and the Italians ended up mopping up the whole German force and recapturing Mussolini. The Storch was never brought on.

We set up and played again and this time it was the Germans who seemed to get most of the luck. Only one German unit was lost in landing and the three units in the eastern batch landed in a tight group near the hotel, as did one scattering unit from the western group. Skorzeny again led a charge on the hotel that liberated the deposed dictator but this time there were a bunch of supporting units along for the show. Meanwhile the Ilatlians had areal drought of usable cards, being stuck with several for a sector where they had no units.

The Storch was brought in, landed and took off with Mussolini for the win -- although possibly just in the nick of time, because the Italians had just drawn the Bombardment card, which Game Store Tony was clearly going to use on the grounded Storch if there had been another turn.

We agreed that we needed one more game to resolve the split, so we made plans to play a tie-breaker at the first opportunity!

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.

Grody Brody

Well, it was a near-run thing as they like to say, but my Germans fell one victory medal short in a game against Game Store Tony in our new campaign refighting Barbarossa from Campaign Book 1.

Things got off to a decent enough start, but the Russian Cavalry was unusually deadly in its charges and the German Heroic Leader had an off day, so it ended up being a 5-4 Russian victory. So far Army Group Center got off to a gangbusters start while Army Group North is pretty well stalled. Brody is the first battle in the Army Group South series. The next battle will require the Germans to do very well and win by at least THREE medals in order to win the scenario for campaign purposes, so we shall see ... .

Looks like a second Campaign Book is on the way for Memoir '44!

Days of Wonder's site has a link to order a new campaign book. It says there are 11 different campaigns involved, which is similar tot he number that were in the first campaign book. There's no mention of any "Grand Campaign" rules however and the breadth of campaigns mentioned int he write-up would seem to preclude the kind of links seen in the first book.

This looks like a nice product and it's definitely on my list.

Memoir '44 Grand Campaign finished

Finished my first Grand Campaign from the Campaign book against Game Store Tony. It was a very near run thing, but Tony's Germans managed to prevail with a pretty convincing 6-3 win in the final game. This game him a 2 point Major Victory in the campaign and a 4-2 overall Grand Campaign victory.

It all did come down to the last game, though and had the medal count been reversed the Allies would have won a Minor campaign victory, worth 1 point, and therefore edged out a 3-2 Grand Campaign win. Nicely balanced.

Next we're moving on to the Russian front for a Grand Campaign of Barbarossa. Unlike the Normandy Campaign set up, where the outcomes of different battles would direct the Grand Campaign down different Campaign paths, in the Barbarossa Grand Campaign there are just some small variations among the battles played, but all three Campaigns get played -- one each for Army Group North, Center and South. The twist is that you play the first half of all three Campaigns first and then go back and play the send half of the campaigns. This seems like it will make it hard to gauge overall progress toward victory in the early going.

The battles will also be interesting. All will be played with the Red Army Commissar rule, which basically forces the Soviet player to play his command cards a turn behind the action. He plays his command card under the Commissar and then executes it the next turn (with certain exceptions such as Ambush and Counterattack). Game Store Tony has volunteered to play the Soviet side for this campaign.

And then a hero arose ....

Game Store Tony and I continued our Grand Normandy Campaign, this time playing Pushing Through Caen -- although before long it looked like it would better be called Pushed Around Caen.

Yep, the initita going was grim for my British. Every attempt to push across the river was decimated and repulsed, and before long I was staring at the wrong side of a 4-1 medal count in the 5-medal game. My sole foothold remaining across the river was a single surviving troop figure hunkered down in some sandbags across the central bridge.

And then a hero arose.

Or at least that's my theory.

The first card that hinted at a turn-around in fortune was a Medica & Mechanics that restored the depleted unit to full strength. A subsequent shot from the Germans missed. Then a Behind Enemy Lines card allowed the rallied unit to charge close enough to fire upon and eliminate the German artilelry unit and then jump on the Verrieres Ridge medal objective!! Now it was 4-3 in the medal count.

A few turns of battling elsewhere left both sides weakened, with several units down to 1 or 2 figures, and the score tied at 4 apiece.

An attempt by a German infantry unit to retake Verrieres left it cut down to a single figure and Game Store Tony reluctantly pulled away to the shelter of a building -- and right into a Barrage card!

"That's it," Tony glumly noted as the four dice rattled across the table. After all , there was a 93.25% chance of getting at least once hit. A terrific come-from-behind win!

The dice rolled to a stop -- two stars and two tanks.

Oh, come ooooooooooooooon!!! Aaargh!

There was no second chance, as Game Store Tony's next shots scored that final hit for the final medal and a 5-4 scenario win, a 15-9 campaign win and brought the Grand Campaign to a tie. But worse, the dice quashed a great war story. Damn!

Sometimes it's just not in the cards ... . Memoir '44 session

Today is the 70th anniversary of the battle of Beda Fomm, where the pursuing British blocked the fleeing Itanian Army in North Africa and bagged 150,000 prisoners.

Game Store Tony, as is his custom, took the historical losers and commanded the Italians while I took the Briitsh. The night before, after setting everything up to make sure I had all the pieces I had played through the scenario solitaire. It was a crushing British win and I felt pretty good about my prospects.

But I sure didn't draw the same cards and as a matter of fact I was nearly crippled -- four of my six cards to start were probes and recons on the Right Flank (where the Brit infantry was). In retrospect I probably should have spent a couple of turns to clear out some of that baggage, but I never really felt like I had the time. Tony's Italians seemed to be drawing the cards THEY needed and he made a very determined and aggressive push against the roadblock. I never felt like I could let him have a couple of unopposed turns over there so I used every card that let me do something on that side. He jumped out to a 3-1 lead, but the real killer was when he played a Counterattack in response to my Armored Assault. My attack did some damage, killing one unit. In contrast one of his armor units fired and wiped out a 2-tank Brit unit in the center, while a second Italian armor exited off the map for medal No. 5.

His final two armor units concentrated on an elite British tank on an adjacent hill. First shot was a hit and a flag. British retreat and Italians armor assault onto the hill and attack again for two more hits a and another retreat. The final shot from range picked off the last tank and Medal No. 6 -- and game. Final score was 6 - 2.

I'd like to blame the cards -- and certainly they could have been better -- but I think I probably should have taken the time to improve my hand rather than rushing forward into battle range.

Panzer Lehr rebuffed! A Memoir '44 fight

Game Store Tony's Panzer Lehr came up short in our continuing Grand Campaign when we played "Panzer Lehr Counter Attacks" today.

As usual it was a close-run affair, ending up as a 5-4 victory for the Allies.

In many ways it wasn't as close as the score would indicate, however, as the Germans just couldn't seem to draw good cards nor roll anything but flags against the Americans. Both sides had trouble finishing off units and by game's end there were just 2 or 3 undamaged units total on the board.

In contrast the U.S. side seemed to draw every special card there was. Still, the Germans game within one move of victory as they knocked off a fourth U.S. unit and got a Panzergrenadier to the board edge, ready to exit for a game win if it survived to be ordered again. The U.S. had 3 medals at that point.

But the US also had an Armored Assault card and three tank units within range. While one picked off a weakened German unit for Medal No. 4 the other two jumped on the nearly exited German troop unit. As it turned out only one was needed as its 4-die attack caused 2 hits and a retreat and the follow-up pursuit close assault finished it off for Medal No. 5.

Memoir '44 campaign continues

Game Store Tony and I continued our Gramd Campaign of Memoir '44 with Capturing the Crossing.

I got a good reserve roll of two grenades and I decided to go whole hog and commit both of them to get anotehr artilery unit and an additonal armor unit, both of which were committed to the Left Flank. I really wanted to win this scenario so as to not allow myself to get into a big hole. Tony decided not to expedn his one Reserve token even though he could have added a THIRD elite armor to his OB. Campaign Event rolls resulted in the British being short 3 figures of infantry and the Germans losing one tank and one infantry.

As it turned out that extra armor unit I took was the margin of victory.

Tony's female friend of the hot Battle Cry dice rolled his dicd for him in the ensuing battle and true to form her dice remained red hot -- but red hot dice were no match for red hot cards. My British for once got all they could wish for in the card draws ,with plenty of Assault and Attack sector cards and multiple useful Tactics cards sucha s Direct form HQ and Armored Assault. Meanwhile Tony couldn't seem to draw a center sector card to save his life, with most of his action happening on the two flanks.

British armor, backed up by infantry and some artillery fire support made a strong push int he center and left flank and simply overwhelmed the Germans. Which is not to say there wasn't hard fighting or the chance for a German victory, as the offensive was very expensive for the British armor with FOUR tank units being wiped out, killing three infantry and a tank in turn. That FIFTH, reinforcing, tank unit was the key to winning, however, as it survived (with one tank) a duel with the Elite German tank unit sitting on the bridge. It killed the last Gemran tank for medal No. 5 and then advanced onto the bridge for Medal No. 6 and the win!

Game Store Tony gets his chance to take the offensive with the next game, Withdrawal from Hill 112. Once again the British will be down three infantry and the Germans down one tank and one infantry figure. The Germans will have one Reserve token to commit to the upcoming battle, while the British have none.

First Memoir '44 campaign

Game Store Tony was psyched enough about getting his own copy of Memoir '44 that he decided to gett he Campaign Book as well. So now we have a Battle Cry campaign AND a Memoir '44 campaign going! The Battle Cry one is an informal let's-just-play-all-in-order one but the M44 campaign is a formal one right out of the Campaign Book. We're starting, naturally, with the Normandy Campaign because that requires nothing but the base game.

And the campaign got off to a stinky start for yours truly. The first scenario is Flanking Caen and despite using a reserve tokens to buy an extra tank my British were not able to make any headway. Tank unit after tank unit was forced to retire to safety behind the ridge after being shot up. I was able to infiltrate one infantry unit to capture an objective marker but it was blasted away immediately. The sole bright spots were eliminating the German elite infantry and the artillery unit but the final score 5-2 in Tony's favor!

Ouch.

Routing Jackson in West Virginia

At Game Store Tony's request we have started a series refighting the battles of the American Civil War in roughly chronological order using the new Battle Cry game system, Our first battle was the little-known action on July 2, 1861 at Falling Waters, W.V.

It's well-known that the first major battle of the Civil War was fought at First Bull Run later in July, but apparently there was some fighting before that, including this battle where Thomas Jackson (not yet "Stonewall") attempted to delay a federal advance. It was basically two Union brigades against Jackson's one brigade, although the Rebel force also included the cavalry regiment led by the also-soon-to-be-famous Jeb Stuart.

Unlike the historical action, however, Tony's rebels were decidedly disliked by the dice, which didn't match well with his aggressive approach to the scenario. Before long Stuart found himself cavalry-less and was reduced to leading some of Jackson's infantry. Even the appearance of another artillery unit as reinforcements was unable to stem the blue tide and the fedearls ran up an early 4-1 lead in flags. The Rebs battled back with two more flags as the Union closed to try to finish the gray fellows off and eventually the deed was done for a 5-3 USA win.

Tony managed to get some revenge later, however, as his French narrowly edged my Germans 6-5 medals in the Battle of Hannut-Merdorp scenario from Memoir '44. This wasn't a very remarkable fight really. It was mostly a back-and-forth melee between two evenly matched forces amidst a scattering of villages and woods.

"Golden Age" blog post is harsh on Memoir '44

This interesting blog post maintains that today is the "Golden Age" of wargaming.

I generally agree with the blog -- and I think his criticisms of Memoir '44 are mostly valid. I just think its flaws bother me less.

To me games like the various Borg designs, Larry Harris' Axis & Allies board games and the Hasbro Axis & Allies land and naval minis, Wings of War, Worthington Games' Hold the Line series and so on fill a needed and valuable niche in the wargaming universe. I don't need any one wargame to be the "ultimate" wargame. There's a need for many different approaches.

To me these lighter wargames are much like a good painting, a television documentary or a comic book. They provide a vivid evocation of a topic, perhaps and insight or two, and with luck prompt a desire to learn more. Their constrained realism is not a bug, but a feature that, if well done, makes a topic accessible to a wider audience. They are no substitute for a detailed study, a book or a library.

Ideally when your new gaming partner starts to point out the unreality, compromises and general silliness that can crop up in a Memoir '44 or Axis & Allies game he/she is ready to move up to the next level. "Yeah, I agree that strategy wouldn't be possible in real life. Maybe you'd like to take a look at _________" and see how it turns out." Many people find all the strategy they want or can handle in a game of M44 or A&A. Indeed, for many people that desire is well-sated by Risk! But for those who are looking for more I think games like Memoir '44 are an excellent introduction. They're fun, colorful and quick and much more successful than SPI/AH era attempts to do the same thing.

A sad little affair -- Session report for M'44 Gallabat-Metemma

Celebrated the day after Thanksgiving and the 70tg anniversary of the East African campaign with a game of Memoir '44 at the local game shop with the stalwart Game Store Tony.

The scenario was Gallabat-Metemma from the Air Pack, which depicts an action from the opening statges of the British campaign to conquer Italian East Africa -- a campaign they won, but not without suffering a setback here and there. Among those setbacks was this battle and history repeated itself in outline, although not in detail.

It doesn't take long to get to four medals in Memoir '44 for I expected this would be a sharp little action and so it proved. While the British attack on the left side of the river went well enough, taking one hex of Gallabat Fort and eliminating a unit while losing a unit in return, the other side of the river was a disaster for the British.

Things got off to a good start as the air lane once again proved to be pretty disappointing. The Me-109 (representing an Italian CR42) took off, made a strafing run that killed one figure and was promptly shot down during the air check for a medal. That was the last thing that went well for the British on that flank, however, as the three British infantry units on that side immolated themselves on the wire under withering Italian fire (damn good dice) and the battle came to a quick close with a 4-2 Italian victory.

So far I have NOT been impressed with the utility of aircraft in Memoir '44. Like Battlelore's creatures and C&C: Ancients' elephants they seem to be difficult to use and pretty fragile in practice. So far I feel like they're more of a distraction than a game-winner.

More stuff on the way -- this time Days of Wonder

Wow, I wish these guys would spread it out a little more. Now Days of Wonder is charging for some of their newest stuff -- Winter Wars and Disaster at Dieppe for Memoir '44 and Be Not Afraid, Necromancer Island and Be Not Afraid Catapult for Small World.

Battle of the Bulge themed expansion planned for Memoir '44

Most Memoir '44 expansion have come in one of two formats: a large white envelope with a paper map sheet and attached small set of vehicles or a small box with rules and extra figures/tiles. Most of the recent ones have been of the former type, so it was a pleasant suprise to see that the next Memoir '44 expansion will be of the meatier second style. In this case it's also suable with the regular sized maps AND with the larger Breakthrough Maps.

The main feature, besides scenarios, are a new set of Command Cards specificaly designed for use with the deeper Breakthrough Maps. I haven't had chance to try one of those yet, but it's high on my to-do list.

More counterfactual Memoir '44 history -- this time Dunkirk

From May 26 to June 4 more than 330,000 British and French troops were rescued from the beaches and harbor at Dunkirk, preserving the essential cadres needed to reconstitute the British army, although a lot of equipment was left behind. Many of those rescued were save by small civilian craft, although the majority were undoubtedly carried off by the navy.

Still, it was one of the most dramatic episodes of World War II, a war that had no shortage of drama.

Game Store Tony and I continued our 70th anniversary of World War II refights using Memoir '44, although this time I was able to finally break his winning streak with the allies. Unlike the historical event, Tony was able to get few troops off the beach and the Germans broke through in force.

The map

The main German effort came around Nieuport, where the three German units on that flank were able to bust through, eliminating the British and French units on that flank and sending a unit rampaging alongt he beach to eliminate some boats and an evacuation unit.

On the other flank the German armor was also able to fight its way to the beach, wiping out the British tanks and an evacuation unit before being killed itself.

The final medal score was 6-3 in favor of the Germans.

Got my fingers slammed in the door at Sedan

Game Shop Tony continued schooling me in the Power of Beginner's Luck by taking me to school in the scenario Driving to Sedan from the Campaign Book Vol. I.

I'm tempted to blame the dice, but then one always is tempted to do that with a Borg game. And if you can't blame the dice, there's always the cards!

Be that as it may, the fact is that my Germans were not able to get much going as they tried crossing the river. Every bridgehead was aggressively charged by French cavalry troops and while it was costly for the horsemen, they were able to do even more damage to the Germans on their way to a 5-3 victory. Once again the air units proved unhelpful, possibly making the Germans waste valuable actions that would have been better spent elsewhere.

I do think I should have devoted more effort to dominating the river crossing by fire. There were too many cases where there were one-on-one fights between French horsemen and German units that ended killing off both units. No Germans got close enough to test the fortified houses.

On the plus side, Game Store Tony is enjoying the game a lot, and his string of victories with the Belgians, Dutch and now French has provided gist for some conversation among the store denizens.

It's on the Hannut-Merdop and Breakthrough to Gembloux next. I expect Game Store Tony will continue his preference for the "underdog" Allies, so I'll have a chance to break the string and stitch up a little bit of the rent in the fabric of the universe caused by our alternative history version of the France 1940 campaign.