OSC: Fighting the Bear

Matt from Evil Bear offered to play a game of his OSC Modern Skirmish Rules with me at BIG yesterday and I have to say what a great little set of rules!

A fireteam level modern skirmish set, OSC has some very simple mechanics but plays exceptionally well and engages both players at all times. The inclusion of Action, Event and Resource cards is a great touch and adds a lot of flavour to the game.

OSC can be played 'properly' or (as I did) 'Hollywood fashion! We played a near future game each with an Encased Armour trooper and teams of regular troopers attempting to recover various Objective Counters.

It was a close fought battle ending in a draw, I almost blew it in the final turn but the Gods of Dice saved me (again). OSC has a lot to recommend it and I'm looking forward to playing it again soon.

Saga: Saxon Hearts

The second game I played with Rich was Saga, and this time Rich decided to play as Anglo-Saxons against my Vikings.

This was a hugely enjoyable game and the Saxons proved to be a tough opponent, providing lots of tactical challenges, their battleboard if used well seems like it could be decisive, especially with abilities counting units as having 10 or more models!

The battle ended in a draw and to be fair probably would have been a victory for Rich if I had heard what he was saying in a decisive combat between my Beserks and his Thegns (there were a lot of games going on around us and looking at the Saxon ability used I should have rolled a few less dice but didn't hear this and Rich didn't notice at the time). Still it was good fun and we both enjoyed the game.

WH40K: Wrath of the Space Wolves

Played a couple of games against Rich at BIG yesterday. First off he suggested we try the current edition of 40K. Not having played a game since 1989(!) I wasn't sure what to expect. We played two different Space Marine 750 point armies. The game was fun and ebbed back and forth, but I still couldn't get my head around the relative infectiveness of missile fire in what is supposed to be an SF game.



The melee combat was fun (the game showing its fantasy roots) and advantage swung back and to, I thought I was about to win, but some poor dice rolling let me down at the death and Rich emerged the victor...

Overall, I'm happy to play the odd 40K game like this, but I can't see myself getting into it in any major way...

A (brief) Partizan Snapshot!

Went to Partizan on Sunday to help on the Hysterical Games stand so I didn't really get a chance to have a proper look around and take photos but a few things caught my eye...

Martian Practice (VSF Sharp Practice):

World War One:

Suez 1956:

What A Tanker!: Panzer Marsch!

After my Saga debacle I managed to get involved in a six player game of What A Tanker! at BIG on Wednesday evening, taking command of a Panzer IVH!

The game was reasonably balanced points wise with the Germans having three PzIVH's and the British a Sherman Firefly, regular Sherman and an M10. Jim dispensed with the initiative rolling and we drew cards playing cards to see which crew's turn it was. This was a good idea and I'd suggest it as a house rules as it made the game a lot quicker.

It was a good game and much better balanced than my exertions against the evil StuG's on Saturday. I managed to sneak around the side of the blue building in the photo above and brew up the Sherman Firefly who had kindly exposed his flank to me. Unfortunately the M10 lived up to its tank destroyer reputation by destroying my tank a couple of moves later as I tried to get into a position to hit him. Good fun.

Saga: The Gods of Dice Fail Me!

Had a game of Saga against Matt last night at BIG. He'd been kind enough to lend me his Viking army for my first couple of games so it was a bit strange facing the very troops who had done so well in my initial forays with the system...

Unfortunately my army (and my dice) let me down big time!

This picture around turn three shows about as good as it got for me, my four beserks having just killed four of Matt's Hearthguard. Unfortunately my badly positioned warriors in the woods to the left were unable to follow up the beserker bloodbath and bad positioning of my Levy archers meant they didn't do a great deal much of the game, though with my Hearthguard they did take out a unit of Matt's Warriors. Unfortunately he managed to wipe out my Hearthguard and almost all my other Warriors.

Apart from some lousy positioning during the set up (I did have a plan, Matt just did something else!), my use of the battle board was poor this week and my dice rolling absolutely abysmal. Obviously the Gods of the Saga dice have deserted me for playing with tanks! :D

What A Tanker!: StuG Bait!

The Lardies came to BIG today and ran a three game What A Tanker! tournament. As I had only given the rules a cursory glance and had a Sherman I didn't imagine I would do much in the three games I played. And I was not disappointed! :-)

My Sherman was downgraded to a basic M4A3 to start and with three others attempted to thwart an attack by three PzIV's and a StuG. Under the tutelage of Lardy Rich my tank was swiftly destroyed by the StuG, though my crew survived!

Steve goes BOOM!

In game two against two StuG's and two PzIV's  the Sherman team decided to play more conservatively - initially, making use of every piece of cover going.

A cautious advance - spot the hidden StuGs!

However even this didn't work as we soon lost the only tank who had been successful in the last game, so I decided to try and draw the enemy out by advancing as my two comrades picked off the German armour. That didn't work as one was swiftly blown up but my Sherman led a charmed life, despite its exposed and surrounded position, surviving the game with just one Command Dice left.

A Sherman called Starstruck survives!

For the final game my M4A3 was upgraded to an M4A3 (76) with the other Shermans being replaced with a Firefly and two M18 Hellcats. Against two StuG's, a Hetzer and a PzIV. I lasted two turns before being brewed up by a StuG! 

Steve goes BOOM! - again

My crew though survived and returned a couple of turns later in a M4A2 Jumbo. However pinned in the corner of the table with the Firefly and with a series of crap Command Dice rolls by both crews we saw the M18's obliterated and the Germans roll over the board.

The Jumbo does not a lot - the Cromwell's are proxies for  the previously destroyed Shermans!

A lot of fun, not sure how balanced the games were, the StuG's are powerful and hard to hit, could have done with a Hawker Typhoon! Overall the game is huge fun, not to be taken seriously, but does need a number of tanks on the table for optimum enjoyment.