Our first game on Monday was a slightly adapted version of the Clash of Iron scenario from Super Science Tales, one of the expansions for .45 Adventure. Lenin shifted the action from the Eastern Front to the Western just following the failure of Operation Wacht am Rhein (the Battle of the Bulge).
The scenario is in three chapters using the characteristic Rattrap 2' x 2' board (which is all you often end up using on a larger table anyway!). In Chapter 1 my small German force managed to penetrate the American supply base and find one of their suits of Power Armour.
In Chapter two we had a much tougher time getting ourselves and the Power Armour back out. Particularly due to the intervention of a rather tough US robot. We took a few casualties but, thanks to a stray mortar round, managed to get away.The final Chapter saw us pick up some other stragglers, try to break through the US front line, past another US robot and make it to the German lines.
Initially, the .45 Adventure system seemed a little fiddly but as the game progressed we got back into it. One of the key issues is remembering any special attributes any of the characters has and using it appropriately. This is tricky enough when you only have a couple of characters but is a handful when you have more.
“Bloodying The Nose”, 17 December 1944
We went on to try the first scenario from the new Two Hour Wargames scenario book for Nuts!, Peiper at the Gates.
This one had the German forces advancing onto the table and encountering a partially dug in US force. My job as the Germans wasn't helped by Lenin rolling up a snowstorm which reduced visibility to only 8 inches!
Initially, things went pretty well with the US missing my half-track with their bazooka and then withdrawing from the barn just before I demolished it with the Panther's main gun. However, our advance stalled when the half-track broke down, we encountered stiff resistance from the farm house and the Panther wouldn't move.
I found that advancing troops (even using a Fast Move) across open ground was rather too hazardous and chose instead to flank the farm house. After popping a grenade through one of the windows my assault was repulsed and the synchronised advance of the MG42 team was stopped by a hail of lead. This ended up with something of a stalemate until I managed to get the Panther going again and took out the whole building (Lenin and I agreed that we need to look at those mechanics in the rules as they seem a little too extreme).
I pushed forward again, following the US Engineer unit which had retreated from the barn but came unstuck when they successfully disabled the Panther with a well aimed bazooka shot (my fault for exposing its flank armour!).
At this point and having inflicted quite a few casualties the US troops melted away into the snowstorm.
It was a great opportunity to get my Artizan and BAM late war figures our along with my Corgi die-casts.
Tarzan and the Slave Queen
Our final game was a trial of the Rattrap Broadsword Adventures rules with Tarzan trying to rescue some villagers from the clutches of an Amazon like tribe of slavers.
Things started well but Tarzan got trapped by a man eating plant and needed help to escape. In the meanwhile the slavers managed to capture some of the village children. Fortunately, we saved some of the villagers and were in the process of finding some more when Tarzan was surrounded by the slavers.
Whilst he held them off, the village headman rescued the others. The rules worked pretty well and, if anything, rather better than the earlier game (of course simply having played the earlier game might have contributed to that!) so we're likely to be seeing these ones again.I am in the process of sorting out the photos from the various games and will be posting them to a new album on picasa shortly.
No comments:
Post a Comment