Later Seleucids versus New Kingdom Egyptians

Seleucia invades Egypt.  What could possibly go wrong? They have big sticks, nasty chariots, heavy cavalry and elephants.  They have the best general ever but maybe just a touch of hubris...

The Seleucids find the Egyptians around an oasis.

The Egyptians send their chariots out

as the whole Seleucid army advances.

The Egyptian chariots get ready to charge.

The Seleucid left flank evaporates,

but after some trouble their right prevails.

Then it's a rush for the main body of Seleucids to get to grips with the enemy

before the Egyptian chariots can return.

Well, it could have gone better...

The Seleucids keep attacking, 

but failing to get any knockout blows.

The Seleucids might have done alright on their right,

but the pikes fail to achieve a victory.

Another victory for Karl's Egyptians.

Will they be so lucky against the Classical Indians next week?

  

Settlers of Catan

Been meaning to try this game for a while.  Russell brought it along and after Big City and Tobago we had a go.  Needless to say, Russell won easily (his game and he knew the strategies etc).  But I would certainly play again, not that I cared for the robber as we threw an awful lot of 7s.

Tobago with Volcano

After Big City we went after treasure. Russell (red), Richard (yellow) and I (green) in trying to keep some continuity raced around the volcano as the island was gradually being filled up by lava.

My treasure on the lower left, Russell's on the lower right.

 Richard's lesser amount not captured by the image.

Big City

Russell (red), Richard (yellow) and I (green) played this game together for the first time.  Simple enough, but as with all new games never sure of the right strategy.

By the same person that did Container.

Buildings are residential (red), business (buff), park (green), specials (grey) and factory (black).

Back to Stalingrad Again

This time Stefan and Jeff lead the Germans to victory in the Factory after Karl and Andrew narrowly failed to capture it.

The hidden set up means the game starts slow, builds up as frustration mounts and then comes to a quick conclusion after various rash moves either succeed or open the way for an enemy victory.

Greeks versus Persians in the Age of Hannibal

Since doing the Pyrrhus Campaign there was some pressure to try the Age of Hannibal rules.  I am more than happy with Basic Impetus (and must get back to Impetus 2.0) but have finally given them a go.

1,000 points per side on a six by four table.

We used terrain and deployment set up from Basic Impetus.

(Because we hadn't assembled the cards for AoH).

Mark B's Persians had out scouted my Greeks.

It struck me as very much like DBA, but with more figures.

In most cases we used two classic WRG bases to represent one unit.

This gave a standard 40mm x 40mm base mostly.

It was great to get my Hoplites on the table again.  

I had started that army back in the mid 1980s.

Unlike DBA, at least at the start, the number of movement PIPs was not a problem.

The rules are very simple and perhaps I over think things when moving a unit.

The big difference to DBA was the use of an eight-sided dice.

I was not very impressed that my die rolls were regularly 1s

and unlike Impetus rolling low is always bad.

The one disorder, two disorder and third disorder dead mechanism worked okay.

The Morale Clock, an interesting idea, seemed irrelevant.  

Maybe dropping one level for every five losses might be better.

The Persians destroyed the Greek left wing.

But the Greeks did have some success on their right.

Getting photos on the big table meant a lot of the figure detail is lost,

so here is a close up.

The club's terrain cloth meant hills can be placed underneath,

resulting in figures falling over,

which you might have spotted in an earlier photo.

Based on just one game it is a bit premature to pass judgment, especially with just the use of one army and not using stratagems or the rule's terrain system.  However, I did find it a bit simple.

I could do to see some detailed examples of play, particularly movement, conforming to the enemy when units are in the way, missile fire at or by units in melee, and handling multiple units in melee.  In the latter case we paired things off if we could.  We also allowed units to fire into a melee but did not allow fire by a unit in melee.

Back to Tobago

Much more fun that Ponzi Scheme, particularly as I amassed the most treasure!

The clues to the treasure, reducing the possible locations of the treasure 

and then dealing it out once it is found is a great little mechanic.

My treasure!

Next time Richard says we can try it with the Volcano and Lava to spice things up a little.