wargamesdiary   A diary of war games and board games

Mike, Phil, Andy and Bruce played this old favourite.

Mike was first out unexpectedly despite starting with Spain and Argentina. Phil got Germany through to the final against Bruce’s South Korea. Andy’s Netherlands only made it to the 3rd place play off against another of Bruce’s teams.

In the final round Bruce was not phased by having two teams to play for as he drew mainly 2 goal and 1 goal cards. Phil only drew attack and defence cards. So South. Korea won the World Cup beating Germany 4-2 in the final.

Well done Bruce who grabbed 3rd place too!

We played the Firefly pirate expansion with the Pirate PvP quest.  Phil took an early lead by picking on Andy to grab Goal tokens but not as much money as he needed.  Bruce and Darryl carefully built up their forces, biding their time.  Mike then picked on Phil and stole his hard won tokens to claim Victory.

Not sure about the Pirate expansion.  Certainly this scenario was all about being mean which is kind of hard in a building game.  It feels like kicking down people’s sand castles.  Perhaps a different scenario will make it less of a problem. 

Mike and Phil played two games and won one each.

Have started painting the command group for my Mirkwood Rangers having justwatched Desolation of Smaug.

BSG: Daybreak Expansion

Phil (Cylon Leader), Bruce, Darryl and Mike.

The players were all human at the start with Phil’s Cylon Leader (Athena) also drawing only human allegiance motives.  The players did well on Demetrius and ended up with a pro-Human Basestar and a bonus distance mission card to speed them on their way.  Admiral Darryl even managed to save lots of Fuel!

After the sleeper phase Phil drew two Cylon Cards and Mike’s President a You are Cylon Card.  At this point the CL became anxious about the speed of the human’s progress as he needed to damage certain parts of Galactica and get the population into the red if the humans were to win.  If the Cylons were to win he’d be victorious.  So the CL searched and stacked the deck to create some action.  This resulted in the President putting Bruce’s Doc into the Brig.   Mike then declared as a Cylon, saving his super crisis cylon attack card for after the penultimate Jump.  Phil let Bruce out of the Brig and then declared, missing a go.  This turned out to be a crucial mistake as the humans then drew and passed a crisis card which gave them 1 extra distance.  This meant that the Cylons were caught planning for the next jump whilst the humans jumped safely to earth having reached 10 because of the crisis card.   Phil’s CL was left cursing as ironically every resource except population was in red and he had achieved his Cylon objectives; so he was on the losing side but not the winning!

Well done Darryl and Bruce.  Bad luck Mike; so close!

Mike, Darryl and Phil played the First Skirmish scenario twice.
Early in the first game Phil triumphed through play of Turncoats.
In the second he had the card played against him but managed to kill the traitors. The card does seem very powerful as it was. played against a red unit each time. Phil then managed to retain the lead obtained through assasinating the enemy general in the first turn and claim. victory.

Day break expansion with Phil, Darryl, James and Mike.

Phil had the mutineer which proved a challenge. He Hoshi set up the rebellion on demetrius and searched for a mission that would guide them to earth. Mike had the lawyer President who sadly lost his voice and could not raise morale. James had Helo the pilot and got shot down by Scar! Darryl had Admiral Adama and had everyone fooled.

For the first phase everyone was human and they travelled far without a scratch. However when Mike made Phil the mission specialist Darryl revealed his cylon nature and with a nasty super crisis card joined the basestar attacking Pegasus. Phil then seemed to be forever in sickbay or Brig having left his safe ship to fix the FTL. With all the resources falling rapidly things were looking bleak. However with some skillful and lucky play the humans held off defeat and used the FTL losing 3 population. Sothey were on their last jump to earth thanks to the demetrius mission cardkk adding one and a good deal of scouting and mission specialist bonus.

With the resources now all in red and fuel dangerously low James pulled out a card that gave the humans some quick fee actions on his turn. Then With no cylons on the map Darrlyl was powerless to attack on his go. So President Mike was able to activate the repaired FTL and jump the fleet to earth! Well done humans.

Our first game at new Battlelore Second edition which lends it self nicely to miniatures play using my LoTR figures!

Mike, Darryl (Red) and Phil (Blue) played two games to learn the rules and the differences between the First and Second editions.

In the first game the Blue Team gained an advantage when the Roc arrived on the left flank.  The imposing Chaos Lord held the centre ground for the Red Team but a lucky cavalry charge on the left flank wiped out the Red cavalry thus securing those two vital VP markers.  The Roc being able to attack and then move proved very helpful on that flank.

The Red team tried again and set up slightly differently declining the Blue right flank completely.  This time they denied the Blue Team their extra VP for the centre ground.  However they proved unable to take and hold those two left VP markers and when the Roc and the Cavalry counter-attacked they lost control of the markers.  A Red attack in the centre by the obscenes petered out because they proved vulnerable to the blue cavalry (no counter) who luckily had two Cavalry charge cards.  The Chaos Lord was too slow to get into the action and the Blue Team just managed two reach 16VP first despite losing the Roc to the poisoned arrows of the Viper Legion.

This is certainly a different game to Battlelore.  The retreats directly away from attacks and the support and counter rules all make a big difference.  Trying to support units and avoid being pushed back onto impassable terrain is very challenging if not impossible with so much unpredictable movement.  On the whole I enjoyed it but I think it will take more time to learn, especially when using the Red Team .  Their movement being slower and with less defensive options makes them vulnerable, especially to the Blue Cavalry with their Vigilant (no counter) ability.  However when they attack they are more deadly and if the Chaos Lord can be brought into battle then they are stronger.

Played Mike at Battlelore over Vassal and Skype.  Battle of Lewes.

Was winning until I played a Battlelore card and rolled mainly flags and swords (few activations).  Mike played a counterattack and showed me how a real Battlelore card is played.

Soon at 5-5 searching for that final kill.  Had no right flank activations!  Then my archers foolishly drove back Mike’s footmen far enough back where they could then trap my encircling knights who had thought they were safe and with two flags and a red claim victory!  Well fought Mike.