Monthly Archives: February 2024

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Panzer Expansion #4 Solitaire Scenario #46 Replay Part 1 — Introduction and Turns 1-3

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Scenario #46 Replay

You have to be fast on your feet and adaptive or else a strategy is useless.”

Charles De Gaulle

Starting French Forces

Situation

On 18 May 1940, during the three-day struggle for Stonne, the B1-Bis “Eure” was commanded by Captain Pierre Billotte. He was also in command of the 1er Compagnie, 41e BCC. Although underpowered for its weight and somewhat prone to breakdown, the B1-Bis, nonetheless, had formidable armor for 1940. It was able to resist the majority German anti-tank fire, as the Germans discovered on that day.

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Firefight Friday #7: Scenario Design 1

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Welcome back to Firefight Fridays. Last week, in the sixth article, I wrote up an AAR based on our recorded playthrough of scenario 7, “To the Last Man, To the Last Cartridge”. This week we are shifting gears into the first in a multi-part series on the scenario design of Firefight Tactical. For this first article, since we will be covering the smaller first scenario, “Done with Sand”, I want to take a little bit of time to cover my scenario design philosophy for Firefight Tactical in general.

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Defiance Design Happy Hour: Modeling the Combat of 2nd Russo-Ukrainian War

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We intend to offer up our design notes regarding our simulation of the 2nd Russo-Ukrainian War, Defiance, beginning with Volume 1: Miracle on Dnipro: Kyiv & Chernihiv Campaign, from time to time. Given that we are designing a simulation regarding an ongoing conflict, it’s a first draft of history. Consequently, at least you’ll get some insight into why we got some items wrong 🙂

In our third  article in this series, we discuss how we model combat during the initial six weeks of the 2nd Russo-Ukrainian War. We’ll begin with a brief review of the Charles S Roberts classic CRT. Then, we take a look at CRTs in France 1944 and Flashpoint Golan, examining  the combat resolution system lineage of Defiance.  For a deeper dive into CRTs, check out Issue 36 of C3i: Mark Herman’s Clio’s Corner, Nr. 13 –  “Wargame CRTs or How to Resolve Chaos”.

As usual, we ramble on. So, feel free to break out a beverage of your choice. We always include a recipe for a cocktail, mocktail or appetizer at the end of each of our Defiance Design Happy Hour articles. This time, we go with the surprise early hit of 2024: the Shagroni (a shake on the classic Negroni).

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Firefight Friday #6: Nowhere to Run

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Welcome back to Firefight Fridays. Last week in the fifth article we covered the major checks that occur in a game of Firefight Tactical. In doing so we finally finished talking about the core game mechanics, and in celebration we will do something entirely different this week. Firefight Tactical’s lead developer, Peter Evans, and I recorded a playthrough of the game’s Cherbourg scenario, “To the Last Man, To the Last Cartridge.” Peter played as the Americans, while I played as the German defenders. You can watch the video HERE. For this week’s article I will be writing up an AAR from that session for your enjoyment (hopefully). Please note as I am describing direction in the write up that my perspective is from the north looking south. Let’s get started.

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A Play Session of Hannibal’s Revenge

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Introduction by Hannibal’s Revenge: A Card Conquest System Game Co-Designer,  Fred Schachter: To begin, readers have hopefully, by now, checked out the tantalizing glimpse of this game’s graphics created by the talent-extremis Mark Mahaffey.  His fine initial work, with assistance of Co-Developer Jason Carr, of Hannibal Revenge game components can be viewed via this link or above: January 18, 2024 Update from GMT: New P500s, Art Samples, Production Update, a Free Download, and More!! (mailchi.mp).

What a difference these are from the Mark McLaughlin hand-drafted Hannibal’s Revenge play test version shared by this article.

But now, onto the main event!

Robert Baynosa and I met, virtually that is, through his being an enthusiastic fan of the first game of the Card Conquest System, Hitler’s Reich.  Robert so enjoyed playing Hitler’s Reich that he was inspired to create a solitaire version variant for it which was shared through an InsideGMT article: Playing Hitler’s Reich Solo: A Suggested Variant | Inside GMT blog .

 When Robert learned of Designer Mark McLaughlin and I working on the next game of the series, Hannibal’s Revenge GMT Games – Hannibal’s Revenge, he enthusiastically volunteered to help play-test it.  To that end, I emailed him the necessary files to print-out and build his own physical copy of the game which is referenced and shown within this article.  As the photos show, Robert created an attractive and functional copy of Hannibal’s Revenge… well done!

To provide readers an idea of how Hannibal’s Revenge plays, by describing but a portion of an overall 90 minute game between himself and his gaming buddy EC Baltazar, here’s Robert’s illustrated report.  If unfamiliar with the Card Conquest System, it may be helpful reviewing GMT’s Hitler’s Reich site’s contents , – GMT Games – Hitler’s Reich; as it contains the latest rules and a host of related material.  With that, Robert, take it away! 

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Firefight Friday #5: Check the Rules

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Welcome back to Firefight Fridays. Last week in the fourth article we looked at the core squad types and their functions. This week we will round out the core mechanisms and look at how checks work. This will be superficially familiar to many, but I promise there are some fun wrinkles in there.

Many actions in Firefight Tactical will come down to a dice roll. While some of these specific actions have their own small deviations, they primarily relate to five basic checks. These are Fire Checks, Morale Checks, Rally Checks, Bog Checks, and Melee Checks.

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Firefight Friday #4: Variety of Infantry

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Welcome back to Firefight Fridays. Last week in the third article we discussed the battle grid and terrain in Firefight Tactical. At this point we have looked at most of the essentials of how the game works, so let’s start talking about the fun stuff that is built on top of the game’s engine. Specifically, this week we are talking about the five core squad types of Firefight Tactical, how they differ, and how they should optimally be used.

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The Guerrilla Generation: Resisting Reagan Campaign Scenario

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After covering the four individual games in The Guerrilla Generation in the previous articles of this series, it is now time to discuss the multipack’s campaign scenario: Resisting Reagan. I think campaign scenarios that link at least some of the games together is an essential part of each multipack, allowing designers to show broader connections between conflicts and also encouraging players to experience them in a comparative manner. The second reason is particularly important, as one of the main advantages of multipacks is to enable players to make comparisons of the different approaches to insurgency and counterinsurgency across the four conflicts included in each pack. The first multipack’s campaign scenario, The British Way’s End of Empire, had players go through each game in succession across the British Empire, with Campaign Events and Colonial Policies bringing in the broader strategic level of Britain’s retreat from empire. When picking the topic of the second multipack, I wanted to choose one that would allow for a completely different approach to a linked campaign.