D-Day fails!! Allies take heavy casualties!

Today was the day - today we decided to take on the behemoth that is Memoir '44:Overlord - both in organisation, number of components and number of players. Within minutes of sending out the initial email asking if anyone in Horsham was interested, the 7 available seats were taken (I was taking the place of one player naturally!). Several people missed out and they wanted to play! This was one popular event!

The location was Brians house and the players were Brian, myself as the Axis and Allied general apiece, and Nigel Heather, Jack and Steve as the Axis field commanders and Andy, Tom and Dale as the Allied field commanders. The layout for the Overlord Omaha beach landing scenario is huge - two beach boards are required with a massive amount of beach objects, wire, tank obstacles etc. The allies had a huge amount of men and tanks to attack the French coast is in reality of 6th June 1944 whilst the Germans had heavily fortified and well dug in infantry and artillery defenders. I could tell it was going to be tough.

Top left a pensive Andy prepares for Orders to attack whilst top right
Nigel thinks about how effectively to wipe out the attackers! 

The idea of Overlord in Memoir '44 is that the General is given a hand of cards and then hands out at least one to each field commander as he sees fit, or if not, relying on the local field commander to make their own initiative calls using dice - which to excuse the pun, can be dicey. The general is also allowed to verbally communicate with one and only one local commander to execute his orders and with the others, hope for the best.

There was a lot of thinking and rule checking at first
as this was new to everyone, me included!

The attack started in earnest and at first, Dale started to make head way with his Rangers in the right hand flank and in his two sectors - each commander controlling two sectors of the 6 sector map. Yes this game is huge! Luckily Nigel had kindly leant me his Memoir '44 for the extra figures and obstacles required.

Then things started to go badly wrong - tank after tank was destroyed and Tom was repelled several times in the centre. Poor Andy on the far left was being ground up by withering fire from Nigel! We were making huge losses for little gains - just like in reality...

The medals to win on this scenario were 8 on either side - luckily the Germans held several objective medals which we the allies could exploit to win. Unfortunately it didn't get that far - Andys attack was blunted against the beach defences and whilst Tom managed to inflict losses on the German centre, it wasn't enough to get over the dunes.

Dale had better luck and managed to force a breach on the right and started up from the beach and into the mainland.

Dale takes a chance and forces a breach which works,
the Germans under Steves command start to fall away!

Unfortunately, the Germans rallied and hit back and the Allies suffered huge losses, at one point it was 7-0!! With few more lucky dice rolls it was pulled back to 7-2, but then Dale took a heavy beating and the Germans won!! 8-2!! D-Day, like Operation Jubilee at Dieppe before it, failed!!

The final result - the Allies are crushed 8-2!

For all it's complexity of having 8 players and many figures and rules, Memoir '44 Overlord moved very swiftly, even with the few down times of rule checks - the Air Pack cards were very handy for this. We leant  a few lessons, but I thought that a few of the guys, especially Jack and Tom, were not that impressed with it all. But that was ok - it was fun.

Afterwards there was a lot of talk - a lot of people wanted to know about the large Overlord papermaps I have. They liked the idea of pre-printed terrain and starting locations for troops and vehicles. the large array of missions plus they are double sided means at least two massive games per map - and there are 4 paper maps!

Later on at Battlequest, Andy relayed how much he had enjoyed the game, even though he had been shredded by Nigel. He also told me that Jack and Tom had said they had thoroughly enjoyed the game and wanted to play again which buoyed me up. Plans are afoot for a rematch or another game with some others who missed out before.

A visit from Brian and Family plus a game of 7 Wonders

We had a great Saturday today - Brian came around with his family and the kids had a great time in the garden with the trampoline and swings whilst we all chatted. Then we had a game of 7 Wonders as Brians children were interested in the idea. Good day all around.

Elder Sign at a great price!

On Thursday I was looking at Elder Sign at Battlequest with Nigel. I had seen it a few times and it interests me. I like these sort of games, investigations in the 1920/30s in a Fringe tv show-esque universe - I played Mansions of Madness once and enjoyed it but didn't want to spend a fortune getting the Arkham Horror games without first experiencing it. Then Nigel reminded me someone was selling a copy of the game in Horsham for £20. An offer was made of £17.50 and it was mine! It's in mint punched condition and looks great. It's also a Fantasy Flight game so it's bound to be cracking. More on it when I get around to play (It's a single player game too!).

A quick game at Battlequest

Today had a quick game at Battlequest - had to get away early - so I just played a quick game of some game with Steve and Andy - a game about scoring the most with castles and tiles. It was ok I suppose, but a bit dull. Not my cup of tea as they say.

First game with new 7 Wonders Catan wonder

Today we played 7 Wonders using the new Catan Wonder I'd got from Andy at BQG. Maya wanted to play it so she used side A as side B has to be used in conjunction with the Leaders addon. She found it ok to use - a little tricky understand how two materials can be swapped for another, but once she got the hang of it she liked it a lot and used the swapping just the right time a few times to get the buildings she wanted.

Hero figures all painted up!

I started painting these a while again with Nigel Heather, but the white undercoat was awful - a horrible white paint by Games Workshop. I tried my best to make do with washed out details and also my eyesight not as good as it was! :) Anyhow I think this is a reasonable effort (better than grey plastic!) but the eyes could have been much better. :(

First play of Merchants & Marauders!

Today I went to Andys Battlequestgames evening and ended up playing Nigel Woods Merchants & Marauders - a massive game of trading, pirates and naval warfare. The premise of the game is to either act as a Merchant, as Julian did in our game, as a Pirate, as Nigel did, or a mixture of the two, like me - although I had to be the most sorrowful pirate on record. The idea is that scattered through out the Caribbean there are various ports to trade (marked by counters) at and also to collect improvements for ships. Also in your home port is your Chest. You can put gold you have won or made into your chest so that it can be counted up later.

Game start

With your starting ship you sail throughout the islands looking to make money and sell goods to the highest bidder. You can also make money completing missions and taking on special events and cards. Pirate ships also roam the seas and wars can break out between nations, so your sailor who may be of one nation may be blocked from entering a port because his home nation is at war with its owner. Home nation warships can also come looking for pirates and woe-betide anyone who goes up against them!

A players ship sheet showing the players sailor top left, any specialists on board,
mission and rumour cards, plus the actual ship bottom left with its
abilities in the centre. Gold is on the right. 

The game progressed smoothly with little interaction between players but with lots going on. Then war broke out between France (my home country) and England, leaving me with several important ports blocked off. This started to change our strategies - Julian was an extremely wealthy trader and I was just making it by. Nigel was scrapping about but making good headway.

Just about to start rocking the boat as it were with Julian!

I decided to pounce (after a LOT of prodding by Nigel lol) on Julians well laden ship with my own ship bristling with guns and weapons of war. It didn't seem fair as he didn't have much protection - he was quickly destroyed but his sailor got away. I got a lot of booty and gold. But this marked me as a Pirate and Man O'Wars would be after me! Nigel too also started a campaign of violence and just as three Man O'Wars showed up, I slipped into a French port, sold all my booty and my old ship, used a card to get rid of the bounty on my head and bought a trading ship! I slipped away whilst Nigels little sloop was suddenly the focus of three enormous Man O'Wars.

Nigels blue sloop is about to be pounded for indiscreet actions whilst I slip away
into the night with my shiny new green merchant ship! 

Unfortunately for Nigel, I got to throw the dice for the AI attacking ships against his sloop....I have a knack for good rolls!

Skulls mean hits - sorry Nigel! You got a few too many of these!

Nigels ship was utterly destroyed by the impact from three warships - crime doesn't pay unless you can pay to get a new ship before the Law comes!

The game ended with Julian getting the maximum points after building up his trading ship again and still scoring it big time trading. This was a very long but great game. It has lots of things to do that you can do or choose not to do which is what I like in a game. The length was a bit of a downer, but it was a great game.