V for Victory

Chris & I decided to try out Scenario 1, “First Encounter”. Chris brought his Yanks along, who I confronted with my Germans. The Germans opted for 3 Reinforcements and an MMG, as support. The Yanks also took the 3 man Reinforcement option, plus a sniper team. Then their Special ability yielded another support point, adding an MMG. This was to prove pivitol!

The Scenario objectives are to seize the 3 objectives (circled in red). The Yanks deployed from the bottom left corner and the Germans from the top right.

The Yanks sent Blue squad to their right, to overwatch the culvert objective. They sent White squad to their left, one team to cease the left flank gate objective, while the other team set-up overwatch just to their right. In the centre the HQ team attempted to move toward the central objective, supported by the MMG and the sniper team.

The Germans pushed Red Squad toward the culvert on their left, while Blue Squad and the HQ team pushed toward the central objective, supported on their right by the MMG.

The German push toward the culvert soon came under fire from the US overwatch squad in the woods overlooking the culvert. Despite suffering a lot of Stress, the German Red Squad rifle team managed to reach the cover of the culvert, supported by covering fire from their LMG team.

In the centre the US White Squad BAR team quickly lost a showdown with the German MMG team and was forced to fallback. This allowed the Germans to push forward Blue Squad’s rifle team toward the central objective. However, combined fire from the US HQ team, MMG & sniper team, quickly pinned down, then routed the German Blue squad rifle team.

However, concentration of US MMG & sniper fire on the German Blue Squad rifle team, allowed the German Blue squad LMG team to locate the US MMG and Sniper team and then start to suppress them. The Germans then threw forward their HQ team, who managed to reach the hedge, just to the left of the central objective, driving back the US HQ team.

But, the US platoon leader managed to rally his HQ team and redirect the MMG & sniper team fire on the new German threat. The German HQ team was quickly pinned down. Worse was to come, as over on the German left, at the culvert, the German Red Rifle team was first pinned down, Panicked, then routed. This enabled the US Blue Squad to redeploy onto the left flank of the German HQ team, causing them to Panic & break.

Overall, a smooth first game. The rules seem to play nicely, with fairly intuitive, consistent mechanics. The Stress morale system is quite effective, forcing players to divert limited management resources, to rallying pinned down teams. Overall looks like a good one from Tomahawk Studios.  

Infamy Infamy: In Goth we Trust

Inspired by Colin Murray’s article in the 2023 Too Fat Lardies special we played a game of Late Romans defending a farmstead against a Gothic warband. The Goths were tasked to capture some Roman civilians, although the likelihood of it descending into a punch-up to see who was the last-man standing was highly probable.

The Romans deployed early and started to head towards the farmhouse much to the dismay of the Gothic player.

The Gothic warbands now deployed from the woods

 

 

with the Romans turning to face them.

 

The Goths started to raise their fervour in anticipation of a mass charge into the Roman lines.

The warbands charged, but the Romans held and managed to push the Goths back.

However, the Limitanei on the Roman left were struggling to hold the Goth Nobles

 

and the Gothic archers were sneaking their way through the farmstead, on the lookout for any civilians.

 

 

It was looking bad for both sides as their force morale was failing. It was down to who was activated first on the next turn. The Gods were smiling on the Romans as their Warlord came out of the bag first. Activating the last unit of Comitatenses to charge the Goths in the flank, breaking the warband and wounding their leader.

 

The Goths at this point were obliged to withdraw empty handed, dragging their many wounded away.