Ogre AAR: Recovering a Relic

I'm getting later and later with these battle reports, but I don't care, 'cause it means I'm doing a lot of gaming on a regular basis. This game involved two sides fighting to recover an immobilized Ogre from a long-forgotten battle.

Have your tried turning it off and back on again?

The dormant Mark III-B sitting in between the two opposing forces would have to either be hauled out or field-repaired and driven away.

Typical weekday morning commute on I-35 in Austin.

But before that could happen, the two sides sped down the freeway to beat on each other in what would turn into a very bloody battle.

To recover the prize, the attackers (gray army) had combat engineer infantry. The defenders (green army) also had an OGREcovery vehicle, in a nice construction orange shade.

Meanwhile, the freeway firefight devolved into overrun combat, which cut the road. I use the round markers to indicate destroyed units. They're made from adhesive stickers attached to one-cent coins and spraypainted brown and black. One of my regular players, Wes, christened these tokens "death pennies."

This roadside brawl left a lot of units from each side destroyed, as you can see by all the dead unit markers.

But each side kept shoving in more tanks, hoping to swing the battle.

Galactic Knights battle report

Spaceships! It's been a long time since I had a space battle. Last month, I played in a three-way match with a couple of members from our gaming group using the Galactic Knights rules.

I had a trio of Aquarian ships: Two Barracuda-class cruisers (the Ann Wilson and the Nancy Wilson) and a Shark-class battlecriser (the Jaws).

Joseph had his kitbashed his three Terran craft: the Ranger-class cruisers Lober and Sally-May and the Formidable-class battlecruiser Trumter.

Finally, Wes took the Entomalian Wasp-class destroyer, the Hornet of Viria; and two battlecruisers--the Scorpion-class Nemesis; and the Roach-class Minerva.

Not much of a scenario; just the three squadrons stumbling into each other as they explored an asteroid field. As I set myself up between the other two players, my small fleet quickly came under fire from Terran missiles and fighters.

I wanted to share the love, so I split my attacks between the Terrans (beam weapons) and the Entomalians (missiles).

The humans pressed the attack, and my amphibians could not repel firepower of that magnitude, and I lost the Nancy Wilson.

The battle continued, with the insectoids drifting close to my battlecruiser as we traded shots.

The same thing was happening with the Terrans and my remaining destroyer. While I scored some hits, I didn't take out any opponent's ship.

My squadron commander knew he was beat, and he ordered his two vessels to make their way out of the asteroid field. In the end, the other fleets were somewhat damaged, but still battleworthy. If neither one of them outright won, they did tie in defeating me. But I didn't mind--because spaceships!

Museum of the Pacific War

I recently had a chance to go back to the National Museum of the Pacific War in Fredericksburg, Texas (hometown of Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz). The museum is well worth the visit.

There's plenty of hardware on display--American, British, and Japanese.

In addition to land, sea & air vehicles and artillery, the facility displays weapons, uniforms, and equipment from the Pacific theater of World War II.

More importantly, the historical displays are detailed, and there are plenty of them. In particular, I found the background on the prewar interactions between the West, Japan, and China to be very interesting.

The runup to hostilities is well documented, and there are videos and interactive displays throughout the museum. There's even a Japanese mini-sub.

The museum documents all aspects of the war in the Pacific; while U.S. viewpoints are most numerous, the museum acknowledges the contributions of allies as well as the perspective of the Japanese.

There's a lot to see--you should plan on taking all day, or parts of two days, to make sure you absorb everything.

Also of interest to the gamer in me, a couple of models and dioramas.

I'm lucky that Fredericksburg is just a couple hours' drive from home. The museum is world-class.

If you ever have a chance to visit the National Museum of the Pacific War, I highly recommend it.

Triplanetary has landed

Triplanetary is the grandaddy of all vector movement spaceship games, dating back to when Marc Miller (of Traveller fame) created it in the 1970s. I went in on the Kickstarter when Steve Jackson Games (which had acquired the rights to the game) decided to publish a new edition of Triplanetary. Well, today the game arrived: nearly a hundred counters worth of spaceships, a rulebook, and two maps representing the Solar System that cover my entire kitchen table when unfolded. I'm looking forward to trying out some of the scenarios in the rulebook and zooming around the planets according to the laws of physics.

Kickstarter for Escape the Dark Castle

Escape the Dark Castle is a fun, card-based, RPG-lite with a very old-school vibe and evocative black-and-white artwork. The game can be played most anywhere, including our local watering hole, as shown above. The original game sold out, but is now being reprinted as part of a Kickstarter for several expansions to the base game. The expansions add new cards and new mechanics to Escape, as well as a collector's box designed to hold all the components from the base game and the additions. If you missed out on this the first time, give it a look. It's a fun game that's ideal to play pretty much anywhere as you enjoy a beverage.

Run through the jungle

I haven't been blogging about Ghost Archipelago much, even though we've been playing that game on a consistent basis since January.

So here's a game from early April that involved our crews toting boats overland to a swamp in search of treasure.

Spoiler alert: What we found was mostly critters.

Yes, my Heritor and his crew are lizardmen. I like to be different.

And with a Wave Warden, I couldn't do much to keep the swamp denizens away, despite our common cold-bloodedness.

There were also other crews to deal with, although for most of the game we were content fighting the creatures and not each other.

A great game, and fantastic terrain by our resident terrain builder, Yosef.

Your monthly Monopolis game

We're coming up on this month's Ogre game, so it's time for a report on last month's Ogre game. The scenario was a counterstrike by the besieged Monopolis defenders, who sallied forth to take out the besiegers' command post and supply depot. I actually got to play in this game instead of just referee. My opponent was someone who had seen us playing a couple months ago and expressed interest.

Despite having revetments, the besiegers (a group of mercs calling themselves the Ravagers, whom the main attacking force despises) lost two light artillery pieces and nearly half an infantry company when the Monopolis Volunteer Militia opened up with its artillery on the outskirts of the city. The bombardment was the signal for the city's GEVs to make for their targets. Unfortunately, the Ravagers took out more than a third of the counterattackers, losing just one heavy tank in the process.

The tables quickly turned, however, as the Militia destroyed the attackers' supply dump. No more hot meals on this side of town. With casualties mounting, the city forces fell back, leaving the command post up and running. Meanwhile, the Ravagers headed toward the city, hoping to destroy the Monopolis artillery or laser tower with their own mobile howitzers.

While the besiegers did take out the laser tower, they were unable to destroy the city's howitzers and took casualties among their heavy armor--losing all three superheavy tanks and another platoon or so of heavies, along with one of their mobile howitzers. They wore down the defenders' infantry and GEVs in the process.

In the end, the attackers had to fall back as the city's reinforcements were due to arrive (the scenario ended after six turns). With the attackers losing a supply depot but retaining their CP, and both sides suffering massive armor losses, I called the battle a draw. But I got to play, and I got to get another player to the table, so I consider the evening a win.