Battle Report -Jan 8th

So Kurt made it out this Friday and we got a couple games in. First we started with a Flames of War 1350 Late war game, Germans vs British. I switched to a rifle company so I would be the defender and see that side of the game. We did the no retreat mission from the website. You use the long length of the table with the attacker starting with all troops on one end (east), the defender with a smaller amount at the two objectives. The attacker needs to take and hold one objective.

Germans started already crossed over the river spread out.




The British started with one unit in the building covering the forward objective with the commander. Another was held in reserve. Meaning the second objective more to the Northwest was undefended.The Germans started moving forward and put lite fire on the building. HMG took firing positions on the hill. The two no anti-tank Panzers took position firing on the building. During the British turn I revealed my ambushers in the forest on the north side.


However the reserve roll decided a lot. One groups of Shermans arrived and their guns had the luck of the Irish and across the board destroyed two Panzer IVs.


This left the Grenadiers and the recon of the Germans in a tight spot. They went from assaulting one British Rifle Platoon with Panzer support, to needing to assault the forest with Sherman defense! Adding insult to injury because of the positioning of the tanks, the two antitank Panzers were destroyed, giving the Shermans a lot more freedom. And this was turn one!



Mortars however starting shelling the forest to give the Grenadiers some support. Successfully pinning the Guard Platoon.


This lead to both the recon and Grenadiers assaulting the forest, however luck stuck with the British and they held the position.


With the collapse of the northern assault, everything came down to the southern assault on the town hall. (Note: The British were in the building it just doesn't have a removable top) First the Shermans finished off the remaining Panzers. With tank support the British managed to pin down the assaulting force even as the German HMG's pinned down the defenders of the Hall.

The Germans couldn't shake their pin and as more Sherman's and British Infantry came on the table we called the game.


Few things I learned. Unless we are doing a specific mission/team event I think I will run infantry Guard not a tank company. One Id like to be both the defender or Attacker (tanks are always attacker). Also being able to mover Tanks companies around without my CiC or 2iC being likely casualties is a huge relief. Also the reroll of motivation for my army is huge. Even though it didn't help me much in this game, watching Kurt's Southern assault fail because of motivation failures to remove a pin, or the counter assault up North fail, really showed how that 4+ with a reroll is helpful.

Our second game was Malifaux. It's an interesting game since the standard size is 5-6 models per team. I'll let Kurt explain it since I'm still learning (plus bill maybe you could add a section, or should we merge all battle reports into one forum?). But the basics is you use cards instead of dice. The advantage is you can replace a card flip with one currently in your hand (Like I said I'll let Kurt explain in more detail to those interested). It makes some very interesting mechanics and I suggest everyone give it a try with a test game. (Especially since if you do like it, it will only cost you six models and a deck of cards). The painted minis are Kurt's Mad Hatter Gang of Undead Ladies of the Night, Mine is the unpainted ice followers of December led by Raspuntina.

Don't have much time at the moment, but wanted to add a couple of things to the AAR. First, I made some poor choices in my attack, the most telling of which was splitting my tanks so the high value targets were clumped together and had to take all of the hits from Scott's shooting. I also made some force comp errors, the first of which was taking a 6 team unit of mortars on the attack. It was a waste of points as 4 teams would have been fine. What I really should have had was real artillery, as 6+ firepower on bombardments did not cause much in the way of casualties and the relatively short range of mortars (40") matters a lot more when you play the long way.

I also learned that there isn't much need to trick out your recon platoon with assault rifles. I gave it a shot, but it is not necessary and counterproductive to their job.

As to Malifaux, its closest gaming cousin is Warmachine, in that you have the ability to influence important rolls. In WM that is done through boosting rolls (adding another die through a variety of mechanisms). Malifaux uses cards rather than dice, but allows you to modify important rules in two ways. First, by replacing the flipped card with one from your hand. Your hand is a renewable resource, which is filled at the beginning of each turn. The second, is by adding another flipped card by spending soulstones, which is a finite resource that can only be manipulated by certain models.

Balancing the risk management is for me, as a gamer, the most interesting aspect of the game. Malifaux also has one of the most characterful settings available, where litterly every model has special abilities, a good portion of which are darkly humorous. For instance, the models pictured on my side are a group of dead hookers and their dominatrix, lead by a mad hatter. The hookers special abilities include the ability to lure enemy models closer, undressing to lower their defenses and then hitting the enemy models with infectious teeth and claws.

If you are interested in the miniatures, check our Wyrd miniatures site. www.wyrd-games.net

Not a bad idea Scott, will add a battle report section and add all under same thread.