Naval War playtest Battle Report 1: US Navy vs Imperial Japanese Navy

First off, my apologies for the lack of content recently. I´ve been pretty busy over the holidays and haven´t managed to play much. I did play a ton of Team yankee games just prior to the holidays, but I didn´t take any pictures then.

Today, I decided to do somethign different and play a solo game to playtest Naval War, a new WW2 ruleset currently in development by Hendrik Jan Seijmonsbergen.
Visit http://navalwar.boards.net/ to learn more about the game and become a playtester.

Since this would be my first game with the system, I decided on a pretty simple scenario: an encounter battle during daytime, on open seas without any terrain or weather.

My collection of ships is a bit eclectic, since I got started with a bunch of random Axis and Allies Naval boosters, but mostly focuses on the Battle of the Java Sea. Since there isn't an order of battle for that yet in the playtest, I'll be using the Coral Sea forces (which have a lot of the same ships, especially on the IJN side) with a bunch of proxies.

Team Yankee Battle Report 1; Proxy War

With the rules for Battlefront's new Team Yankee Cold War now fully available if you know where to look (hint: it involves friendly local gaming stores) I decided to try a relatively simple test game to see how things work.

There were a few problems with this, though:

1. I didn't have the proper minis for any of the vehicles I'd want to use. So, time for proxies.
2. I don't have any proper wargaming terrain at home; that's all at the FLGS. Fortunately, I had some stuff to improvise with.
3. I didn't have an opponent. Easily solved by playing both sides, with some helpful tactical input from a few anonymous posters on a certain imageboard.

The forces used would be like this:

Red Banner Tank Division

BMP Motor Rifle Battalion

HQ AK-74 and BMP-2 - 2 points - proxied with WW2 Soviet infantry and a reversed T-34/76

BMP-2 Motor Rifle Company: 4 AK-74, 3 RPG-7, 4 BMP-2 - 8 points - proxied with WW2 Soviet infantry and reversed T-34/76s

BMP-2 Motor Rifle Company: 4 AK-74, 3 RPG-7, 4 BMP-2 - 8 points - proxied with WW2 Soviet infantry and reversed T-34/76s

2S1 SP Howitzer Battery: 3 2S1 - 5 points - proxied with reversed T-34/85s

T-72 Company: 6 T-72 - 27 points - proxied with T-55s

25th Armoured Division

M1 Abrams Armoured Combat Team

HQ: 1 M1 Abrams - 8 points - proxied with a M48 Patton

M1 Abrams Platoon: 2 Abrams - 16 points - proxied with M48 Pattons

M1 Abrams Platoon: 2 Abrams - 16 points - proxied with M48 Pattons

M113 Mech Platoon: 4 SAW, 4 Dragon, 4 M113 - 7 points - proxied with Canadian infantry and turretless welded-hull Shermans

M106 Heavy Mortar Platoon: 3 M106 - 3 points - proxied with turretless cast-hull Shermans

Both sides have 50 points of units. All are part of their formations, with no support units from the larger organisation.

So, what would the battlefield look like?

Like this:

Flames of War Battle Report 8; Heer Grenadiers vs Desert Rats Lorried Rifles

Our local Infantry/Mech is still going strong and I was able to take some pictures of my most recent game in it.

This time, I would be playing Germans against the slowly-growing British force of one of our local players.

We're in the second round of our league, which means 700-point games where Support Platoons are allowed but can't capture or contest objectives.

Keep that bit in mind; it'll be relevant.

This is the battlefield we'd be fighting over.
The mission would be No Retreat.

FoW Team Yankee pics from Spiel Essen

Last weekend, I went to Spiel Essen, one of the premier board games conventions in the world.

Aside from board games, there's also a wargaming presence. One of the companies that tranditionally has a stand there is Battlefront, the makers of Flames of War.

This year, they had a whole bunch of previews for one of their upcoming releases, Team Yankee.

This ruleset is a streamlined version of the Flames of War rules that focuses on a hypothetical scenario: what if the cold war "went hot" in the mid-1980s.

The forces in the initial release will be based on those from the novel "Team Yankee" by Harold Coyle. This means US versus Soviets in southern Germany. 

One of the ways things have changed is that units will now have reference cards which contain their stats, points values and special rules so they're easy to check.

They had a whole bunch of these at Spiel and I managed to take decent pictures of most of them. I also got to read part of the rulebook.

A few of these have been spoiled on Breakthrough Assault since I took these pictures, but I left them in anyway.

However, we start off with a card that doesn't contain unit stats:

Instead, we get a couple of special movement options units will apparently have in this ruleset.
They offer improved mobility options, but only if you pass a skill check. Which means that more skilled troops are better at using these advanced tactics as well, which makes sense. I do think the restriction of being close to the command team is going to be tricky.

The Blitz move could be really devastating if used well, for example to have a unit with anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMs) which can only fire from the halt pop up and shoot anyway. Of course, the penalty for failing this check is pretty harsh as well.
Follow Me! reminds me strongly of Avanti! and similar special rules used by a few countries in FoW. A simple option if you want some extra movement and weren't planning to shoot anyway. This one would be especially useful if it can be used after a Dash movement.
Shoot and Scoot is basically a Stormtrooper move. Who doesn't wish their non-German troops could make those? Well, in the 1980s, they can.
Cross Here allows extra mobility across difficult terrain, always useful to have.
Dig In is as might be expected, although the distance restriction could be tricky here as well. I'll have to see how this works out when we've got the full rulebook to look at.

Battletech Alpha Strike Battle Report 1; Lyran Commonwealth vs Free Worlds League

Recently, I've been getting into Battletech.

It's a rather entertaining game system which goes into a lot of detail in how your giant robots are blasting each other apart.

However, that level of detail is also its greatest weakness; games of Battletech tend to take a while. For example, a game with one lance (four 'mechs) per side might take an entire evening.

That's where the Alpha Strike ruleset comes in.

It's a standalone game based on Battletech and shares many of its mechanics, but makes things a lot more streamlined.

Where a single 'mech's stats in normal BT take up an A4 page (including locations of all internal components like actuators, engine, weapons, ammo and your pilot, which you can damage with ingame effects) all of its AS stats fit on one TCG-sized card, as you can see below.

This is one of the two forces I'm using for this game; a Free Worlds League lance containing a Cyclops, Catapult, Hunchback and Jenner.

The Cyclops and Hunchback are kind of slow but can deal a ton of damage at close range.
The Catapult is best at mid-range fire support. Its jump jets give it pretty decent mobility as well.
The Jenner is small and fragile, but well-armed for its size, with the mobility to deliver that firepower where needed.

Here is their opposition, a Lyran Commonwealth lance containing a Zeus, Dervish, Dragon and Panther.

The Zeus is primarily a mid-range fighter with some decent firepower at the other ranges as well.
The Dervish is a pretty mobile (including jump jets) middleweight with a lot of potential firepower for its size if it overheats for it.
The Dragon is pretty well-armoured and fast for its weight, but slightly low on firepower.
The Panther is a light fire-support machine with decent firepower and jump jets to get in position.

War at Sea Fleet Muster

It's been a pretty quiet week for me in terms of wargaming.

I did get quite a bit of stuff painted for Battletech, which might get posted in the near future.

Meanwhile, here's a little overview of the work I've done so far for my 1/1800 scale WW2 naval minis. 

It's a bit of a mish-mash of stuff I got from Axis and Allies Naval products and minis I bought from Shapeways.

These are the Japanese vessels I've got painted up so far.

Flames of War Battle Report 7; Red Army Strelkovy vs FHH Panzergrenadiers

Well, it's time for some more Flames of War, this time for the Infantry/Mech escalation league we just started at out local store, De Purperen Draak in Groningen.

In fact, this was the first game played for it, with six more played over the course of the day by a bunch of our local players.

In the first month, we're playing 500-point games on smaller tables, with no Support Platoons allowed. Only HQ, Combat and Weapons platoons.

Hopefully, there will be a bunch of additional battle reports in the next few weeks.

If people are interested, I could also do a series where I showcase the different forces used by the various players in the league.

My apologies for the mediocre quality of some of the pictures; I only had my phone camera available.

In this game, we ended up playing Breakthrough.

I was playing the following list:

Strelkovy Batalon (Red Army) - Confident Trained

HQ: CC Rifle, 2iC Rifle, Bat Kommissar, 4 PTRD AT Rifles. (2 PTRDs attached aan elke Strelk unit)

Strelk Company: Cmd Rifle/MG, 7 SMG

Strelk Company: Cmd Rifle/MG, 7 Rifle/MG

HMG Company: Cmd RIfle, 3 Maksim HMG

Mortar Company: CMd Rifle, 6 82mm mortars

My opponent was fielding the following:

Feldherrnhalle Panzergrenadierkompanie - Confident Veteran

HQ - 2x Cmd SMG teams

Combat platoon - 1 Cmd MG team, 4x MG teams

Combat platoon - 1 Cmd MG team, 4x MG teams

Combat platoon - 1 Cmd SMG team, 2x MG42 HMG

Weapons platoon - 1 Cmd SMG team, 2x observers, 4x 8cm GW34 mortars

We rolled off to determine attacker/defender and the Red Army would be trying to break through a German encirclement to connect to their troops in a pocket.

German infantry units are trying to close the gap, but the troops in the pocket are moving in to reinforce.