Benny’s Weblog

Runebound (2): Third play of Runebound. This time I got that damned magic guy, he’s hard to work with but eventually becomes quite powerful. Runebound is a game of mainly solitaire optimisation. I’m not sure how long it’s going to hold my attention.

The Burning Blue (2): Scenario 3. I spent quite a bit of time planning my raids before showing up to play. The game was pretty fast and fun with fewer rules headaches this time around. I want to play again but need a bit of a break. Strategy has been the hardest thing to grasp for me, especially managing endurance and balancing aircraft in the air vs VP gains. I’ll start planning raids for Scenario 4 and see how that goes.

The Burning Blue - S2 (2): Great fun. We’re still getting rules incorrect but improving slowly.

Twilight Struggle (2): Never Headline Olympic Games with Defcon at 3 or less!

Twilight Struggle (2): Second play went all the way through the Late War but I still lost as Russia!

History of the World (4): I can see how Struggle of Empires and Conquest of the Empire were both based heavily on this game. Not bad but the minis drive me nuts, give me chits any day.

Command and Colors Ancients - Issus (2): Two games with sides swapped. I’ve been getting hammered lately, bad dice rolls have not been helping!

Pikamino (4): So fast and light that there’s really no reason *not* to just sit down and play it for a laugh.

Hey, That’s My Fish! (2): Good, light, quick fun. Can’t wait to try this with three and four players.

Chinatown (4): Great game and great fun. Light, easy to teach and quick to play. Feels like a shorter version of Traders of Genoa. I still prefer ToG but Chinatown is quick enough to get played at least as often.

Age of Steam (4): Went way too long. Age of Steam is an awesome game but really needs to be played semi-regularly to stay in touch with the strategy.

C&C Ancients (2): Two complete plays.

Runebound (2): A little on the fence, there’s a pretty small decision space here. Thank God it only takes an hour or two to play!

The Burning Blue (2): First play of scenario 1. I would say scenario 1 is almost purely for learning the game, there just aren’t a great deal of decisions to make.

The Burning Blue (1): I had a go at a solo Scenario 1 mission made available on Consimworld. I was pleasantly surprised at how well it worked. In fact it was so good I started soloing Scenario 2. I’m about 5 turns into it right now. The missions can only be played once but it gives you a great challenge.

The Russian Campaign (2): Every-time I play this I’m reminded, about 5 turns into the game, just how great it is. I can’t imagine how they played this before the sudden death victory conditions were introduced. The Russians won in the Turn 11 sudden death phase following a successful counter-attack on Rostov!
Excellent fun.

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- Orbits can only occur above landmarks and convoys etc.
- Balloons exist over convoys.
- Don’t forget the +1 attack strength per attacking/defending squadron in combat.
- Don’t forget to check for possible Tally loss.
- Don’t forget detection checks when Raids break out.
- The Luftwaffe player may always issue Pancake orders to his units.
- The enemy may Tally back if an Orbit’s Tally fails.
- If a fighter fails to tally one unit, it can continue tallying others.
- Normally a unit uses the “Pr” air picture column of the Tally card unless a RAF fighter is trying to tally a detected unit and is in command or has a Vector order. In this case it uses the air picture counter.
- If a tallied target moves in or adjacent to a pursuing unit, it immediately undergoes an attack (interrupt movement).
- For an escort React result the LF player may choose Escorts or Top Cover units but not both.
- Escorts attack at the point of Intercept (the bomber point) but do not change their height!!
- Escorts do not get the Up Sun modifier.
- All RAF Airfields have LAA!
- Don’t forget Nav rolls for the LF player.
- Scramble limit is 2 units for Sector airfields and 1 unit for other.
- Note the restrictions for units moving through “overcast” weather.
- Units may not take-off or land at airfields affected by fog.
- Frei Jagdt do not need a Landmark to go into Orbit.
- Bombing takes place at the expenditure of the Diving MP, the unit may not change altitude first.

Landmarks
- Any printed town, port, factory, Chain Home RDF station, sector airfield or non-Fighter Command airfield icon. Coastline hexes, including the River Thames, are landmarks.
- Satellite airfields and Chain Home Low RDF stations do NOT count as landmarks.

Raids
- If a Raid is detected a detection card is placed in the raid’s box.
- After reaching the target hex dive-bombing units and their close escort should plot an altitude of Angels 2 from the target back to their recovery point.
- Only certain units, designated by the scenario as ‘low-level raiders’ may be plotted to fly at Angels 0.
- For raids from Luftflotte 2, form up points can be plotted on any landmark, airfield hex or movement box in France except for Cherbourg and Caen.
- For raids from Luftflotte 3, form up points are plotted in the Cherbourg or Caen boxes.
- Freie Jagd raids [9.4.1] must operate independently of bombing raids.
- Each time a bombing raid reaches a waypoint on an outbound leg to the target or reaches the target itself, the Luftwaffe player secretly rolls two dice on the Navigation Table.
- Units that receive pancake orders should be broken out from the raid, along with any other pancaking units, and made to form a new raid.
- When raids break out, make a detection check on all the broken out raids and the original raid.

Form Up Counters
- The plotted form up time of all Luftwaffe raids must be within 18 game turns (1 hour 30 minutes) of the start of the scenario. EXCEPTION: If the time of day is Dusk, all raids should form up within 6 game turns (30 minutes).
- Four game turns BEFORE a Luftflotte 2 raid is due to form up, place a form up counter. Luftflotte 3 raids place a counter one turn before form up.
- Do not place form up counters if the raid’s form up point is out of the arc and range of RDF.
- On placing a counter perform a detection check for its strength. Remove the counter when the raid forms up.
- The Luftwaffe player may place dummy Form Up counters on the map or remove them in the Form Up Phase however he sees fit.
- When the Luftwaffe player removes a dummy form up counter he may draw a detection card to conceal whether the raid is a real raid that is undetected at form up.

Forming Up Raids
- Check for detection, if applicable.
- If detected place a hostile raid counter otherwise track its location secretly.
- Place counters for the units in the Raid Display. Mark each unit with its plotted altitude.
- Units may only deviate from their plotted course if they are in pursuit or have a pancake order.

Runebound (2): My first play of this turned out to be a lot more fun than expected. Although I did entirely badly, losing by a long margin, I still enjoyed it. I think partly because the game took only a marginal amount of time.

C&C:Ancients (2): Still loving it, went back and played an old scenario from the first set.

Settlers (4): First play in a very long time, I still love the game even after 100+ plays.

Hannibal Rome vs Carthage (2): These CDGs are hit and miss for me. It’s really good but as far as strategy goes a little beyond me. This is my third or fourth play, still keen to keep trying, haven’t seen Carthage win yet!

Antiquity (4): A pretty good game, not sure how much staying power its likely to have yet.

Pikomino (5): Filler.. probably ran a little too long this time.

Scenarios played at Cancon ASL tourney.

ASL (2): FT31 - The Yelna Bridge. I’ve played this twice before but it was no help as I still have not figured out how to win as the attacker.

ASL (2): SP95 - Burn Gurkha Burn! An excellent scenario, lots of fun to play and came down to the very last Close Combat die roll. My first tournament win.

ASL (2): SP123 - The Badger’s Breath. I thought I had this in the bag for most of the game but things fell apart on the very last turn. A very tricky smoke/flank attack secured the buildings quite easily.