Temple of Chac

We had three guys out at the club this week and Terry put on the Temple of Chac. Basically, the game is an Indiana Jones-themed treasure-collection game. You have your usual rolling stone ball, closing walls, lava field, underground river and dodgey bridge 

We managed three games in under two hours. Each player gets two characters. Dan made use of his second character almost immediately in game 1. Terry's venture across the lava field saw him join Dan in the "redux" club.

I managed to stay ahead and cross the bridge Then I went back to jump on it and drop some boards for Terry. Then I booted it for the exit while the boulder trapped the others. An unlikely win!

It seems to me that there are basically two strategies: lava field treasure hunt or run and try to unlock the doors to various treasure vaults.

The lava field requires looking at and memorizing which tiles are trapped each game (while the walls are closing in). Since that is hard, I always chose run-and-pick, while Dan and Terry leaned towards the lava field.

This did not work well for me in game two as I got smeared and then trapped in the tomb (along with everyone else).

Game three was tight with everyone in the river as the boulder rushed towards the exit. I didn't take any pictures but Terry and Dan made it out while, weighed down by a huge amount of loot, I died steps from the exit. A pretty fun evening.

Congo Gulch

Bruce hosted a game of Congo Gulch last weekend with six players. The game started with an off-board map game to decide where the battle would take place, resolve two minor skirmishes, and the pace of the reinforcement entry.

The main battle saw the defenders set up the board, the attackers place three victory markers, and the defender decide which edge the attackers start from.

The attackers face a pretty linear defensive line with two objectives close by and one at the far end of the table. The Marx brothers were on board briefly before getting wasted on turn one.

The attacker's main thrust was on the left flank.

While the right flank saw two units try to cut down the side to grab the furthest victory marker.

There was a protracted fire fight mid board while the reinforcements struggled to get on board.

In the end, the defenders whittled down the attackers enough that there was no way the attackers could withstand the reinforcements.

Thanks to Bruce for hosting!

FUBAR at the club

Apologies for missing a post last week; work got complicated. We had six guys out at the club last week and Bruce ran a game of FUBAR (near-future sci-fi).

Dan and Chen were tasked with crossing a river and taking three victory points that were defended by Terry and Richard. Units started on the board and arrived via dice roll and the game had a dice-activated clock. Terry and Richard had good starting rolls so were pretty solidly on the table. Chen and Dan had beans for troops for the first few turns, which was really hard to recover from.

The drop-troops arrived scattered but Chen and Dan managed to force their way into town and then clear it. But a flanking attack ended badly. Richard and Terry moved quickly to contain the bridge head.

At the end of the game, the attackers held one location and the defenders held two. Victory points were revealed and it was a handy win for the defender (which were poised to counter-attack in any event).

All told, a fun game to watch--the dice drive activation made for an interesting (and frustrating) game.

La Salle and PBI at the club

We had eight guys out at the club this week. Bruce hosted Richard, Terry and Scott in a game of La Salle. I think the defenders managed to hold off the attackers' efforts to expand a bridgehead.

Mike hosted Dan, Chen and me in a game of Poor Bloody Infantry (v1). This was set in Italy with the Loyal Eddies attempting to clear some Germans out of some houses (the Germans set up hidden).

On the German right, the Canadians came forward pretty relentlessly.

Over on the left, the Canadians ran into stiffer resistance on the woods.

A firefight saw the Canadian left attack stall out. Mike's cursed green dice were entirely responsible for this. Death to the green dice!

Mike's 10mm figures are very nicely painted, however. And his terrain was super slick so I guess can forgive his choice in dice.

The Germans took the offensive on the left and push an assault forward into the woods.

The result was that everyone but the German platoon commander died ("Ach, Scheisse!"). This basically ended the Canadian attack on this side.

On the right, the Canadians came on strongly but ended up strung out with command and control woes. The Germans then redeployed to contain the Canadians and counter-attacked.

With the game-clock running out of time, the Canadians were thwarted and the Germans won based on casualties.

Christmas Eve Terror

The guys at the club let me run a winter-themed game for our last session of the year.  I always wanted to use the huge lego ship my daughter got for a birthday present and I figured it looked enough like the HMS Terror that it would do.

The scenario was basically capture the treasure-chest lost for generations aboard the ice-bound HMS Terror. For Team Buffy, it contains the Book of Sorrow, for Team Vader it contained the location of the rebel base, Team Hogwarts was after a Horocrux and Team Santa wanted the deed for mineral rights under the pole (since toy manufacturing was booming untenable).

The boat was surrounded by frozen zombie crew (who thawed out as the game progressed) and was in the hands of four terrifying villains: President Cheeto, the Grinch, Henry Ford and Marie Osmond. The ice was thawing (we placed blue water cards each turn that interrupted movement). I made provision for a five player game but with only four, we ran the villains as NPCs.

The first two turns saw some movement (zzzz...) and some fighting between Santa and the little witches. Due to the darkness, figures could only see three card lengths ahead of them.

Suddenly, Buffy was up on the poop deck grabbing for the chest! This galvanize the rest of the players to dog pile on Terry. The card mechanic in Tribal means that even unsuccessful attacks can cost an inactivated figure its turn and Buffy spent a lot of time fending off attacks! The blue cards are growing areas of water as the ice cap melts.

Team Vader wisely stayed out of the fray and let the rest of us duke it out. The stormtroopers were shooter gangs (so largely useless) but Vader was a very powerful figure.

There was much combat on the ship: below Buffy fights off Mrs. Weasley.

The Yeti dusted Trump and everyone cheered. Terry was given a time out for puns.

Intermittent fighting between Hogwarts and Santa continued with Hermoine putting the boots to a jolly old elf (so much for elf liberation).

Eventually Vader got ready and jumped up on the ship...

 ...and proceeded to cut through every other character like a hot lightsaber through padawan. With no one left to fight him, Vader made off with the chest and was declare the winner. Some cagey play by Scott. terrain was good. I'm not sure the scenario was all that interesting But there was lots of fun with the placement of water cards.

Mike and Chen played some Crossfire, with a British attack being beaten back (I think) in the hedgerows of Normandy.

Up next: Some more 15mm WW2.

Crossfire at the club

We had six guys out at the club this week. Bruce out on a game of Lunar Wars for Richard, Terry and Chen. I'm not sure what point Bruce is making in this photo, but I suspect Chen is learning his lander will be late arriving because it stopped for an iced cappuccino.

Mike brought out a 10mm game of Crossfire. Crossfire was one of the first games we played at the club 15 years ago. But some of Mike's terrain was so new that the glue hadn't dried!

The British had to occupy the crossroads at centre table while the Germans had to maintain LOS on it at the end of the game. Neither side could afford to lose more than 50% of their units and there was a count down clock to game end.

The hidden deployment was fun and forced a cautious advance. Eventually the two sides came to grips. Mortar fire stalled the British armour but the infantry were able to reorient to pin down a German unit.

After deploying some PBI mine detectors, the Brits rolled up the right side of the board and outflanked the Germans for the win.

I had a really good time and would play again now that I have a better sense of the rules and could play a more aggressive defensive strategy.

War at Sea!

We had five guys out at the club this week (bad roads) but Red Claw was packed with painters and gamers. Bruce hosted Chen and Mike in a game of Congo Gulch. At one point Chen was being berated for killing the objective (!) but the game continued.

I played War at Sea with newcomer Derek. Derek trucked a ridiculous number of ships out for us to choose among and gently walked me through a Pacific game.

My allied fleet was up against a nasty bunch of Japanese gunboats. Fortunately, I managed to get lucky with some early airstrikes.

Airstrikes continued to work for me.

And I was up fairly far in points by mid-game.

Unfortunately, I got cocky and ate some torpedoes. And then Derek threw a mitt full of sixes and the HMS Hood exploded and I was down to destroyers and torpedo bombers.

Fortunately, between kills and objective captures, I got enough points to win before the Japanese gunnery ravaged my tin cans.

Overall, this was a hoot to play and Derek was very gracious answering my questions. It is not a simulation but was good fun an d was easy to learn. Since the ships are no longer available, I wonder if the rules could be modified to Star Trek?