Christmas Games 2022 part one

As regulars here will know, I always try to get in a couple of games over the Christmas-New Year period here at Stately Counterpane Manor. I aim for games that are fun and light-hearted without being silly and that can accommodate reasonable numbers of players with varying levels of experience. The number of players available can sometimes be hard to nail down due to family commitments so the design of scenario needs to be flexible.

What a Tanker from Too Fat Lardies is a good choice as it plays quickly, will accommodate any number of players and requires very little scenario design work. We played on the 27th, adapting a couple of scenarios from the Skirmish Campaigns book Grossdeutschland at Kursk. 

John, Andy and Jamie ran various German Panzers, while Kevin, Ron and Simon took the roles of Soviet tank commanders.

The idea was to get through as many games as we reasonably could so as to try out to rules for crews with "kill rings" getting bonus cards in subsequent games.

Because the games ran relatively quickly (we played two games in four hours with a comfortable break for lunch) it wasn't a disaster when one player (sorry John) got his chariot shot from under him. He was able to come back before too long in the second game. If the first had looked like going on much longer I'd have allowed John a second bite of the cherry as a late-arriving reinforcement.

The first action, "Spearpoint", ended in a Soviet victory. I then hastily rejigged the terrain for the second game, "Red Counterthrust". This saw some tremendous, close-range fighting with Jamie's Panzer IV at one point sheltering behind Andy's Tiger to engage Kevin's marauding T-34...

As our only Tiger commander Andy was plagued by tremendously bad luck. He repeatedly failed to roll 7+ or even 6+ on 2D6 to hit and when he did hit, his ability to roll fives or sixes to damage his opponent was pitiful low.

He did, however, demonstrate an almost supernatural ability to roll fives on his command dice at one point. 

For those unfamiliar with the rules, this hand of five fives allowed nothing but reloading at a crucial point in the battle. And the Tiger was already reloaded!

What a Tanker worked well for the kind of game we wanted people were keen to try it again. Maybe next time with more dense terrain. Normandy maybe?

A few days later we played Song of Blades and Heroes but I'll leave that for another post.