Prufrock's Wargaming Blog
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Snowed under...
Have been a bit snowed under of late. Three PBEM games going and a sudden burst of enthusiasm for chess (of the chess.com variety!) has meant that I've had little time or energy for posting here. There are some PBEM updates to do when the mood strikes, however...
Monday, September 17, 2012
DungeonQuest with the kids
Today was a public holiday so with the kids starting to get restless mid-afternoon I roped them into a game of DungeonQuest.
If you don't know of it, DungeonQuest is an adventure game based around going into a dungeon and - you might have guessed it - finding treasure. Each player starts in a different corner of the game board and must make his or her way to the dragon's lair in the centre by - here's the trick - drawing dungeon tiles. These tiles show a room, corridor or tower, with between one and four possible exits. When you enter a room you will, depending on what kind of tile you turn up, have to pull a card of some description, which might cause an encounter with a monster, set off a trap, uncover some loot, and so on.
It's a bit too fiddly for the kids to play properly, so we used some dad's rules, which boiled down to two key elements: the kids' characters can't die, and they must have fun.
To this end they got to choose a character figure and start on the corner of their choosing. Each turn they drew a tile and moved onto it. We didn't use any cards or complicated stuff; it was fun enough for them just trying to put their tiles together in a way that would get them to the treasure chamber.
Every second or third tile they drew I would reveal a monster figure and place it in the tile they'd just pulled, yelling "It's a (insert name of mythical beast), quick, roll the dice!" and the child in the hot seat would roll until they scored a 5 or 6.
Foreheads would be wiped in exaggerated fashion and exclamations along the lines of "phew, that was lucky!" would be made.
Once both kids made it to the central chamber (their old man was still floundering about near the entrance...) four monsters suddenly appeared, and they had to take turns rolling the dice until all of the creatures were dead.
Both kids seemed to have a great time and immediately wanted to play again. Not only did they enjoy it, but so caught up in it were they they forgot to get into their usual grizzling match about who got to take first turn, who won and so on.
You wouldn't think it, but a game involving violent conflict made them much more cooperative and agreeable than a game involving matching cards, scoring points for picking up cheese, or saying words correctly. Maybe there's a lesson in that...
Anyway, judging by the enthusiasm exhibited today, I think this game is one that we'll be able to come back to a few more times yet.
If you don't know of it, DungeonQuest is an adventure game based around going into a dungeon and - you might have guessed it - finding treasure. Each player starts in a different corner of the game board and must make his or her way to the dragon's lair in the centre by - here's the trick - drawing dungeon tiles. These tiles show a room, corridor or tower, with between one and four possible exits. When you enter a room you will, depending on what kind of tile you turn up, have to pull a card of some description, which might cause an encounter with a monster, set off a trap, uncover some loot, and so on.
It's a bit too fiddly for the kids to play properly, so we used some dad's rules, which boiled down to two key elements: the kids' characters can't die, and they must have fun.
To this end they got to choose a character figure and start on the corner of their choosing. Each turn they drew a tile and moved onto it. We didn't use any cards or complicated stuff; it was fun enough for them just trying to put their tiles together in a way that would get them to the treasure chamber.
The adventurers on their quest...
Every second or third tile they drew I would reveal a monster figure and place it in the tile they'd just pulled, yelling "It's a (insert name of mythical beast), quick, roll the dice!" and the child in the hot seat would roll until they scored a 5 or 6.
Foreheads would be wiped in exaggerated fashion and exclamations along the lines of "phew, that was lucky!" would be made.
Once both kids made it to the central chamber (their old man was still floundering about near the entrance...) four monsters suddenly appeared, and they had to take turns rolling the dice until all of the creatures were dead.
Oh no, it's four creatures flogged from World of Warcraft: the Boardgame!
Both kids seemed to have a great time and immediately wanted to play again. Not only did they enjoy it, but so caught up in it were they they forgot to get into their usual grizzling match about who got to take first turn, who won and so on.
You wouldn't think it, but a game involving violent conflict made them much more cooperative and agreeable than a game involving matching cards, scoring points for picking up cheese, or saying words correctly. Maybe there's a lesson in that...
Anyway, judging by the enthusiasm exhibited today, I think this game is one that we'll be able to come back to a few more times yet.
Saturday, September 15, 2012
A Victory Lost with Piero, first turn
An email buddy and I have just started a play-by-email game of A Victory Lost, the brilliant Eastern Front operational game by Tetsuya Nakamura. This is Piero's first attempt at AVL, so it will likely be a learning game; but as I've been experimenting with taking screenshots before and after every activation, I'm going to post these here as a record of how events progress.
To get a general overview of the rules and feel of AVL you can take a look at an earlier post, found here, that I wrote on it back in February.
The screenshot below shows the positions at game start. The Soviets have strong forces present in the vicinity of 1st Guard Army, 2nd Guard Army and 5th Shock and 5th Tank Armies. The German line is weakly held in the centre, but there are powerful panzer divisions scattered about the south.
The Soviet attack commences: 6th Army attacks across the Don, dislodging elements of the Italian 8th Army from their positions and establishing bridgeheads for exploitation.
2nd Guard Army advances in the south, but unfortunate circumstances allow 7th Landwehr and 336th Division to hold their positions. Stalin will have something to say to the random number generators...
STAVKA is drawn from the chit cup, and the whole of the Soviet line activates. The Germans are under pressure everywhere. They are in danger of being overrun in the south, but again the line holds firm. Grave fears are held for the future of 4th Panzer Army.
The Rumanian 3rd Army HQ authorises a pull-back towards Millerovo and Morozovsk which gives the Germans some breathing space.
5th Tank Army breaks through north of Tsimlinskaia, destroying 8th Landwehr in place and threatening to outflank 7th Landwehr next activation.
4th Panzer Army at last gets the order to withdraw. The bulk of the panzer divisions are ordered north, crossing the Don to support Hollidt against 5th Tank and 5th Shock Armies. 15th Landwehr falls back to Proletarsk to hold the Manych River crossing and bar the way to Rostov.
1st Guards Army closes in on the German troops in position at Rossosh in the north, driving back one division and cutting the other off in the town. The centre of the German line has been blown open and the north is in tremendous difficulty.
In the south, Hollidt orders a local counterattack north of Tsimlinskaia, giving 7th Tank and 5th Mechanised Corps a bloody nose and driving them back. The line is briefly restored.
German reinforcements arrive - Kempf rushes north with two infantry divisions while Fretter-Pico sets up headquarters at Voroshilovgrad on the Donets.
Soviet 28th Army is due to arrive on the south-eastern flank of the German position, and elsewhere another tank corps makes its way to support the offensive.
To get a general overview of the rules and feel of AVL you can take a look at an earlier post, found here, that I wrote on it back in February.
Turn 1, December 17 to December 27, 1942.
The screenshot below shows the positions at game start. The Soviets have strong forces present in the vicinity of 1st Guard Army, 2nd Guard Army and 5th Shock and 5th Tank Armies. The German line is weakly held in the centre, but there are powerful panzer divisions scattered about the south.
The Soviet attack commences: 6th Army attacks across the Don, dislodging elements of the Italian 8th Army from their positions and establishing bridgeheads for exploitation.
2nd Guard Army advances in the south, but unfortunate circumstances allow 7th Landwehr and 336th Division to hold their positions. Stalin will have something to say to the random number generators...
STAVKA is drawn from the chit cup, and the whole of the Soviet line activates. The Germans are under pressure everywhere. They are in danger of being overrun in the south, but again the line holds firm. Grave fears are held for the future of 4th Panzer Army.
The Rumanian 3rd Army HQ authorises a pull-back towards Millerovo and Morozovsk which gives the Germans some breathing space.
5th Tank Army breaks through north of Tsimlinskaia, destroying 8th Landwehr in place and threatening to outflank 7th Landwehr next activation.
4th Panzer Army at last gets the order to withdraw. The bulk of the panzer divisions are ordered north, crossing the Don to support Hollidt against 5th Tank and 5th Shock Armies. 15th Landwehr falls back to Proletarsk to hold the Manych River crossing and bar the way to Rostov.
1st Guards Army closes in on the German troops in position at Rossosh in the north, driving back one division and cutting the other off in the town. The centre of the German line has been blown open and the north is in tremendous difficulty.
In the south, Hollidt orders a local counterattack north of Tsimlinskaia, giving 7th Tank and 5th Mechanised Corps a bloody nose and driving them back. The line is briefly restored.
German reinforcements arrive - Kempf rushes north with two infantry divisions while Fretter-Pico sets up headquarters at Voroshilovgrad on the Donets.
Soviet 28th Army is due to arrive on the south-eastern flank of the German position, and elsewhere another tank corps makes its way to support the offensive.
As things are - but dependent on how the chits come out of the cup - the Soviets are primed for success both north and south this turn as there are vulnerable German units at both ends of the line. That said, the Germans will have 4 chits in the cup this turn, giving them more options and a better chance to fall back to better defensive positions. Turn 2 will be very important (but they all are, really!).
Stay tuned for more...
(BTW, at the time of writing there are about 300 hits to go before the blog reaches the magic 50,000. If you want to enter the celebratory thank-you giveaway, go to this link and follow the instructions there.)
Thursday, September 13, 2012
50,000 hits and a celebratory giveaway
After a couple of years blogging we are approaching the milestone of 50,000 hits. I'm fairly sure that some of them have even come from people other than me (!), so to thank you all I'm going to do a giveaway.
Before we get to the details, I'd just like to say that while this blog's primary function is to keep a record of my wargaming activities, it has also proved to be a significant motivator in helping me to get more figures painted - and these done to a less shameful quality than I was previously accustomed to.
As good as this is, by far the most gratifying by-product of blogging has turned out to be the connections built up with gamers all around the world. It is a constant inspiration to see what others are up are up to and to have people drop by here to take a look and/or comment is very encouraging.
So, to cut to the chase, as a thank you to all the folks who visit me here, I'm going to do a humble but heartfelt celebratory giveaway.
The winner will have a choice of two items. For those who like boardgames there is a lightly used but complete copy of GMT's Guilford, the third volume in Mark Miklos' Battles of the American Revolution series. It's a nice little game containing two scenarios and uses quite an interesting battle mechanism. The counters are all punched, bagged, and neatly clipped. It's probably not something you'll want to play every night, but you might get a few good games out of it.
If boardgames are not your thing, you can instead take the poorer cousin: a set of EM4 Miniatures' Old West Heroes. The box is slightly beaten up, but it contains five pre-painted 28mm figures, rules, and a CD-R with files for a printable western town. The pre-paints are not going to win the Golden Demon, but they're not bad, and it looks to be a useful set if you like Wild West gaming and light-ish rules.
To be in the draw, there are two things you have to do:
1) be (or become) a follower here, and
2) leave a comment on this post saying what your favourite board and miniatures games are.
If you are a follower here but have changed your user name, profile or photo since you became one, you can always 'recommit' to be sure that I don't overlook you by mistake.
Once we get to 50,000 hits, the dice will be consulted to find a winner. I will then announce the result here and ask him or her to contact me privately with a name and postal address and to indicate which item they would prefer. After that I will send the game or figures off, hopeful that they will arrive in one piece, but conveniently avoiding all liability if they do not!
The dice roll will of course be done fairly, but people I recognize as especially valued visitors will get the equivalent of two entries in the draw.
There we have it.
Thanks very much again to everyone who has dropped in here over the past couple of years, and good luck!
Before we get to the details, I'd just like to say that while this blog's primary function is to keep a record of my wargaming activities, it has also proved to be a significant motivator in helping me to get more figures painted - and these done to a less shameful quality than I was previously accustomed to.
As good as this is, by far the most gratifying by-product of blogging has turned out to be the connections built up with gamers all around the world. It is a constant inspiration to see what others are up are up to and to have people drop by here to take a look and/or comment is very encouraging.
So, to cut to the chase, as a thank you to all the folks who visit me here, I'm going to do a humble but heartfelt celebratory giveaway.
The winner will have a choice of two items. For those who like boardgames there is a lightly used but complete copy of GMT's Guilford, the third volume in Mark Miklos' Battles of the American Revolution series. It's a nice little game containing two scenarios and uses quite an interesting battle mechanism. The counters are all punched, bagged, and neatly clipped. It's probably not something you'll want to play every night, but you might get a few good games out of it.
If boardgames are not your thing, you can instead take the poorer cousin: a set of EM4 Miniatures' Old West Heroes. The box is slightly beaten up, but it contains five pre-painted 28mm figures, rules, and a CD-R with files for a printable western town. The pre-paints are not going to win the Golden Demon, but they're not bad, and it looks to be a useful set if you like Wild West gaming and light-ish rules.
To be in the draw, there are two things you have to do:
1) be (or become) a follower here, and
2) leave a comment on this post saying what your favourite board and miniatures games are.
If you are a follower here but have changed your user name, profile or photo since you became one, you can always 'recommit' to be sure that I don't overlook you by mistake.
Once we get to 50,000 hits, the dice will be consulted to find a winner. I will then announce the result here and ask him or her to contact me privately with a name and postal address and to indicate which item they would prefer. After that I will send the game or figures off, hopeful that they will arrive in one piece, but conveniently avoiding all liability if they do not!
The dice roll will of course be done fairly, but people I recognize as especially valued visitors will get the equivalent of two entries in the draw.
There we have it.
Thanks very much again to everyone who has dropped in here over the past couple of years, and good luck!
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
Case Yellow
I am currently enjoying a play-by-email game of Ted Raicer's Case Yellow: the German Blitzkrieg in the West with my email buddy Andrea.
Andrea is controlling the Germans (with razor-sharp precision!) and I am bumbling about as the Allies. Things are looking pretty grim. It would have been a lot worse but Andrea has managed to roll a ridiculous number of 1s in his attacks these last two turns, and his terrible luck has been considerably more influential in preventing catastrophic losses than have the actions of this Allied commander!
The panzers have reached the channel coast, so I've now declared Operation Dynamo in an attempt to salvage some formations by embarking them from Oostende and in so doing perhaps gain enough victory points to stave off a German game victory.
I don't think this is a game that I would want to play every week, but it has been very impressive so far to see the Germans in action.
Here's a clickable screenshot of the situation on May 21st (end of turn 3). To concentrate on the positives, the Maginot line is holding up pretty well!
Andrea is controlling the Germans (with razor-sharp precision!) and I am bumbling about as the Allies. Things are looking pretty grim. It would have been a lot worse but Andrea has managed to roll a ridiculous number of 1s in his attacks these last two turns, and his terrible luck has been considerably more influential in preventing catastrophic losses than have the actions of this Allied commander!
The panzers have reached the channel coast, so I've now declared Operation Dynamo in an attempt to salvage some formations by embarking them from Oostende and in so doing perhaps gain enough victory points to stave off a German game victory.
I don't think this is a game that I would want to play every week, but it has been very impressive so far to see the Germans in action.
Here's a clickable screenshot of the situation on May 21st (end of turn 3). To concentrate on the positives, the Maginot line is holding up pretty well!
Monday, September 10, 2012
Painting poem
Night time sat in craft
room
paint fumes
rising
lead shine
warm
in yellow light
I ply brush late and
finish
each cuff
just so...
Thursday, September 6, 2012
Video report - Paraitacene with Lost Battles
I've been experimenting with some video making software today and thought I'd use some photos from a Lost Battles game I did a while ago to put together a slightly tongue-in-cheek AAR as a wee tester.
You can see the results here...
What do you reckon? Time to start concentrating more on my day job?
You can see the results here...
What do you reckon? Time to start concentrating more on my day job?
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