Italians to the Rescue!

Yes, I did say Italians, and yes, I'm talking about WW2!  My work is still keeping me away from my normal gaming levels so to keep me going I have been sneaking in quite a bit of board gaming the past couple of months.  I had a chance to grab both the Europe 1940 and Pacific 1940 offerings from the Axis and Allies board games very cheap, so I did it finally.  These two games can be put together to play the entire war on all fronts.  We are actually having a lot of fun with this game.  It is quite easy to play, but the big strategic decisions are real brain breakers.  I highly recommend these games.  Anyway, back to the Italians!  During the course of my Europe game with Herrodadog, my Italians went nuts and ran roughshod over everyone.  At first I was thinking "what the hey!?!?", but in reflection, if you really think about it, the only reason they had a troubled start in N. Africa was lousy leadership and organization.  They were definitely poised to be in the driver seat otherwise.  So in this alternate universe they can shine.  Here's some shots from our game so far.  The Yanks have just entered the war and had their first taste of the action.

The A&A game board is rather appealing to the eye and what I like is the little miniature tokens are actually different for each nation for the most part.

Early on my Germans grabbed up all the stuff they were supposed to, and as a bonus they managed to pull off a successful operation Sealion!  I almost miscalculated, but barely got England in a real nail biter.  My Luftwaffe actually had some fighter support by the way.  So at this point the Germans were looking pretty good.

But soon afterwards we launched Barbarossa and dove into the USSR where things didn't move so fast, or so well.  I think I played this too conservatively and allowed the Russkies to get a solid front together.  I took a lot of my resource to grab England, and I was afraid of stretching too thinly into the Russian steppe.  Finally, one of my major battles very strongly resembled Kursk where I got my arse seriously handed to me and lost a bunch of Panzer Divsions.  OUCH!  So the end result is a stalemate in the East.

While all this was going on, the Italians made an early strike at Egypt shutting down the Suez canal and they never looked back.  They overran all of Africa removing all traces of the UK from the continent.  I addition they grabbed Greece and all the islands in the Mediterranean including Malta.  Italian production levels are now quite serious and they have a relatively secure base of operations to work from.

This translates to the Italians being able to go out and cause some mischief elsewhere.  Here we can see them driving through the Middle East and threatening the Russian oil fields from the South.  This will be a great boon for the Germans as now the Soviets must expend resources to defend the second front and thin their defenses in the North.

The Italians also managed to grab Gibralter from a napping Herrodadog which was really driving him nuts.  So now instead of the Yanks entering the war and making an easy landing in N. Africa, they had to fight their way into Gibralter before the Italians dug in too well.  The Yanks managed to take it back, but it was very costly.  In addition, the Italians have a tremendous amount of very mobile air assets available to counterattack and make another try to get it back quickly.  If they manage to take it back, things will look very bleak for the Allies indeed.

All UK assets and production are now coming from Canada and it will be a slow process of getting back into the war.

Good Games for Busy Gamers 2

Next up is one of my all time favorites for easy session gaming.  The simple Axis & Allies minis game.  Along with War at Sea (another game I really love), they make for some very fun sessions without much work.
Of course, they come pre-painted and look fairly good, so that is a huge plus for busy guys, right from the start.  But the one thing I really like about the game is that it allows me to play a lot of variety that I would not be able to afford to do otherwise.  I don't know about you, but I get tired of playing 1944 all the time.  In this game you can throw up some pretty obscure times and places with little effort and low cost.  Sure, I'd love to have units of every year and theater in some line of minis like Flames of War, but it isn't going to happen on my budget.  Bang for the buck, you get a lot of fun out of this game.
But to get the most out of AA I recommend doing two things.
1.  I really recommend getting a hex mat and playing in 3D terrain.  The one big negative to the vanilla game is the 2D maps.  Just doesn't do it for me!  Now in a pinch, if traveling light, they can be ok, but normally I need some good looking table in front of me.
2.  Use hidden units and dummies.  For simple no-record keeping FOW, we simply put the unit cards down on the table and cover them with another card until they are spotted.  Along with a few dummies, this makes the game a real blast and takes advantage of the great recon units and their abilities in this games system.  This simple technique makes a good game great.
Here are some pics from a couple of recent North Africa games we did.  My friend Jil (Herrodadog) threw down some 1:600 scale terrain he uses for other games on a 4" hex mat and off we went.  This is our typical type of set up for this game.

George was playing the Germans and had to get across the map and escape.  He gets points for anything he kills as well as anything that gets away.  Jil was the Brits and had a couple of slow but very menacing Matildas which do a great job of controlling whatever area of the battlefield they happen to be on.

We were playing late N. Africa and for simplicity we allow any units you like as long as they fall into that year's availability.  So sometimes we get some strange appearances like that Brumbarr which actually wouldn't be here.  I also believe it came out too late in the year for even a theoretical appearance, but what the heck.  George likes his Brummies!

George's recon keeps dancing around and spotting Jil's positions so he can decide upon his strategy.  Recon units are had to catch, but if you do they are in trouble!

Here is Jil's Humber recon getting caught!

Oops, looks like a Mattie just caught that SDKFZ as well!

The Brummie lurking on the outskirts with a burning PZ I in the background.

A fast moving PZ II has encircled the British position but can only watch from a distance as the Matildas own the roads.

George took a big risk using the PZ III to decoy while his other units get away.

A kubelwagen that got caught by the RAF.

Speaking of the RAF, here is that pesky pilot again, but this time he is going after some of my infantry in another game we played right afterwards.  George played the same British force that Jil played previously, and I brought a new German late N. Africa force.  Final days of the African campaign.

For fun I invested most of my points in a early Tiger that actually was present historically.  Looks like the Matildas won't be total Queens for this match.  I would have liked to see the look on the Matilda's crews face when they came over that rise!

That darned RAF maniac is at it again.

I love the look of the Matildas and they are fun early war tanks because everything else sucked so bad.

Good Games for Busy Gamers

I'm not dead, but pretty darned close to it!  I haven't posted since early September because I had a change in jobs and have been on a schedule from hell.  But rest assured I still get my gaming in.  Being on the ropes like this, I have been playing a lot of games that fall into the easy on the brain category.  Here is some of the stuff that I have found to be easy to play, but still a lot of fun.

First up is a game that my friend Chris has turned us on to.  It is called Crossfire, and is basically an infantry tactical game with no measuring and simple straightforward mechanics.  There are rules for vehicles and artillery etc.., but the game is all about infantry and their lot in life.  You can use any scale or basing of minis and jump right in, and it plays quite fast.  You can relax, play multiple games in an afternoon, and get some pretty interesting situations to ponder over.  I like it!

Your units operate in platoons made up of several squads plus leaders and attachments.  Here are a couple of platoons of my Russkies wading through a field under fire.

You move from terrain feature to terrain feature and enemy actions are triggered by line of sight.  This means no tape measure squabbling and quick movements about the table.

Initiative passes back and forth as units engage in combat and successfully or unsuccessfully hit each other, or become pinned, suppressed etc..  Both players will have dice in their hands most of the time and be in the thick of the action with not much waiting around for the other guy.  Pretty cool game!

Lazy Saturday FoW

Got some time off from work and got to play a bunch this weekend.  Most of the group was busy so us stragglers decided to play some FoW and just chill out.  Then I had a bright idea; "Hey George, let's do late 45 and Patton gets to rearm the Krauts.  I'll be the Yanks, let Dave be the Germans, and you be the Russkies".  Well, let's just say that I got what I deserved!

Some of Dave's Germans advancing on our right.

Here are some of my Shermies motoring into an ambush.

My Sherman 105 support tanks in the center.

And here's the result of my getting ambushed on the left.

While I'm getting my ass kicked, Dave's rearmed Germans are taking names on the right.

He's pushing the Russians pretty hard.

Fortunately, Russian air support was not so good!

After demolishing my easy eights, the T-34/85s went to work on my 105s. 

My infantry heads for cover and starts praying.

Dave begins to close on the objective.

This was not one of my better days.  To prove it, here is where I sent my halftracks up the middle to engage infantry in support of Dave, but forgot there was no integral crew for the 50 cals.  So I just wound up driving around and not shooting at anything!

Just as Dave got close to the objective, he discovers a couple million more T-34s hovering about.  (we ran out of tanks and had to proxy some old Valentines)

And then the final ugliness.  Dave was overwhelmed by all the Russians who had nothing better to do.