Category Archives: Playtest Reports

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A Walk in the Sun: Scenario #5 After Action Review from Silver Bayonet

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Once again we find ourselves deep in the jungle basking in the sunshine and tropical weather. This scenario, #5, depicts the ill-fated journey of the 2/7 Cav (along with elements of the 1/5) as they humped overland from the aftermath of LZ XRAY to a new landing zone, LZ ALBANY, a few miles away.

The torturous terrain combined with a severe lack of sleep and some command issues resulted in the cavalry troopers paying a heavy price as they were ambushed during their walk in the sun.

[NOTE: These examples don’t, necessarily, show the best tactics to be used. They are for illustrative purposes.]

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The Drang River Valley (LZ MARY): Scenario #3 After Action Review from Silver Bayonet

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Following the recommended order of scenario play, the first is #6 Tea Time, we come to scenario #3 LZ Mary. This scenario depicts the night ambush conducted by A/1/9 and some CIDG Strikers on the NVA 66th Regiment as it was moving into the Ia Drang Valley as well as the subsequent NVA counterattack.

[NOTE: These examples don’t, necessarily, show the best tactics to be used. They are for illustrative purposes.]

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Tea Time: Scenario #6 After Action Review from Silver Bayonet

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Here’s an AAR of the shortest scenario in the game: #6 “Tea Time”.

This scenario simulTeaTime1ates the night attack by the VC on the Brigade HQ. The HQ was lightly defended and cooks, clerks, and other “ash & trash” were pressed into service as riflemen. The HQ was saved, but that safety was bought dearly.

The Brigade HQ sets up in 3909 along with B/6/14 Artillery Battery. The VC set up in the hexes indicated by the Assault markers. I’ve spread out the units so you can see who is involved. The FWA also start with 10 Air Points which represents the HH-1 Aerial Rocket Artillery helos which were operating out of the HQ.

Setup rules indicate that the PAVN player must place at least one Assault marker. He places three and declares which units are Assaulting. Note that, although there are eight stacking points of units available to the VC, only four stacking points may actually Assault a hex. In this case, the bigger H-15 Main Force companies (2-3-9s) will do so as there are four of them and each is one stacking point.

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A Playthrough of Comanchería

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Joel Toppen and Mike Bertucelli asked me to play through the tutorial for Comanchería to assist in proof reading. For me it was a rare treat to learn to play this much-awaited game with adult supervision and possibly get a few games in before it gets printed!

The game covers 4 historical periods from 1700 to 1875.  You make the decisions of the Comanche people trying to survive and thrive in the face of numerous threats and opportunities.

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If It’s Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium: Shunning the Schlieffen Plan in Fields of Despair

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Part One

For the past several months, I’ve been involved in the latest round of playtesting for Fields of Despair.  I’m playtesting with a couple of my regular wargaming buddies (Phil Mowatt and Dave Moseley) using VASSAL and Skype. After about 7 or 8 games, in which each of the short scenarios as well as a couple of campaign games were played, we were impressed that this is a game that invites repeated plays.  This is at least partially due to the great variety of possible strategies and outcomes that it offers.  I realize that the purpose of playtesting is to determine whether the game has balance issues or incomprehensible/contradictory rules or a variety of other problems, but because this game has been tested for several years by a fairly large and varied group of people, my fellow playtesters and I weren’t finding any gaping holes in the rules.

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Talon Tuesday Issue #10: Empire War Report

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“Talon Tuesdays” is an article series appearing on InsideGMT periodically on Tuesdays.  It features articles from the Talon development team regarding the game’s design, development and upcoming release.

Issue #10

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Empire War is a strategic game mode in Talon that does not use the written scenarios. It’s going to get its own Talon Tues in the coming weeks but I’ve got this really interesting play test report from one of our MVP playtesters, Michael that I really want to share first. I’ll explain the game mode briefly here.

In Empire War, each player has a fleet of ships that he assigns to different sectors on a strategic map. The game has 4 sectors – Antares, Badlands, Maelstrom, and Orion and each sector is broken into a number of “Conflict Zones” where battles take place. Ship buying and assignment take place over strategic turns, and then battles are fought in each sector.  As one faction wins, the “front line” in that sector advances towards the enemy home world. The game ends when a player loses a battle over his home world.  It’s a big game and it offers players a way to run a “campaign” over multiple sessions in addition to playing the written scenarios.

As you gain territory you increase your income and decrease your opponent’s. Furthermore, there are planets in some sectors, typically guarded by bases that are worth additional income and are easier to defend since they must be invaded by the enemy to be captured.

The most important thing in an Empire War is keeping your ships alive and destroying those of the enemy. If one side gets a large fleet size advantage, they are going to be able to very easily take territory. Knowing when to retreat is an important key to victory. Empire War is honestly my favorite way to play the game in the long term.

There are ship assignment minimums that mandate a certain quantity of ships be assigned to each sector. This prevents a side from just blitzing through one sector with his entire fleet strength. Tracking ship assignments is pretty easy on the tracking sheet that comes with the game, but to make things easier, I’m working on a player aid app that will hopefully be ready shortly after the game’s release.

Michael was one of our most prolific play testers. Not only did he put in the time, he consistently wrote very detailed and insightful reports. He also tested every written scenario and wrote some of his own. He was a developer’s dream as far as play testers go. One of his last play tests was an Empire War game that he soloed. In the second strategic round of play, one of the largest battles in Talon history took place over the planet Orion.  Here’s his report:

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Talon Tuesday Issue #7: From Afterburners to Addicted

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“Talon Tuesdays” is an article series appearing on InsideGMT periodically on Tuesdays.  It features articles from the Talon development team regarding the game’s design, development and upcoming release.

Issue #7

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Jim’s Under the Hood segment will continue next week.  In the meantime, here’s an article about Talon afterburners, which was the brain child of our Lead Playtester and “Chief Tactical Officer”, K. Patrick Barley.

When I first learned about Talon, Bob was cracking open some plastic baggies with homemade counters in them and laying out his Space Empires board. I was excited by the concepts that make the game so unique, fleet level combat, micro-decision tactics and the glorious dry-erase markers. Bob and I eagerly got into it, and divided up six heavy cruiser tokes from each faction, leaving me with what might have turned out to be the most fated decision in Talon’s design history, “Terran or Talon, sir?”

I eagerly chose the Talon’s powerhouse weapons, high maneuverability and powerful forward shield array. I lined my fleet up in the right corner of the map and waited for Bob to take a similarly tight formation. Turns took off and I loved the six part Impulse breakdown, weapon charging mechanics and the inverse relationships of power to speed and speed to maneuverability. Then came the big moment, Impulse D of Round 2, I had reinforced my forward and flank side shields, moved my ships into a solid concave on Bob’s point ship and was eagerly waiting for Bob to move his ships into range three so I could get an alpha strike off before his ships got within weapons range. If I could cripple one of his three ships before they could even fire, I would be way ahead!

“I don’t get power this turn, but I’m going to use my battery to take the initiative,” Bob says confidently.

HE WHAT!?!?

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Talon Tuesday Issue #1 – Dice Tower Convention 2015

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“Talon Tuesdays” is an article series appearing on InsideGMT periodically on Tuesdays.  It features articles from the Talon development team regarding the game’s design, development and upcoming release.

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Issue #1 – Dice Tower Convention 2015

I had the pleasure of taking Talon to Dice Tower Con 2015 in Orlando, FL this past June. It was my second trip to the convention, having gone in 2014 as well. It’s a fantastic convention and really well run (kudos to Heather Mann and Patrick Havert, the chief organizers). They predominantly have “mainstream” gamers there with only a few traditional war gamers peppered in. This was exactly the reason I’ve brought Talon to the convention for the last two years.

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I believe that Talon, like Jim Krohn’s other GMT product “Space Empires: 4x”, has broad appeal. It’s a really accessible, easy to pick up but difficult to master tactical war game.  Demo-ing the game countless times at Dice Tower has proven this to be true.

Patrick Barely, my right-hand man on the development team, and I printed and cut 4 prototype copies of the game.  Our goal at this year’s convention was to hold a tournament.  You would think it would be hard to hold a tournament for a game that has not yet been released, but Talon is very easy to pick up. The Dice Tower folks were kind enough to give us prime real estate in the main gaming room for our booth. This let us teach and demo the game to all passers-by for the first few days of the con. Eight of the people we taught felt confident enough to attend the tournament held on the Friday of the convention.  

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THE ROUND TOPS – Hammerin’ Sickles in Action (Part 1)

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HS Image 1PART 1: – Introduction and First Game Turn

Hammerin’ Sickles: Longstreet Attacks at Gettysburg recently “made the cut” on the GMT P500 and Fred and I are very thankful for the support from the gaming community. We thought it would be a good time to give a brief run-through of the game and show how a typical game flows. The tutorial scenario – “The Round Tops” – depicting the fight for both Big and Little Round Tops is a compact, quick-playing vehicle to help demonstrate the Blind Swords system in general and Hammerin’ Sickles in particular.

First, let’s do a brief overview of how the system works. Blind Swords is a chit-pull mechanic system with some interesting twists. Before each turn, players will “load” the chit-pull cup with Division Activation Chits (one for each Division involved in the game), some Event Chits (more on those later), a Fog-of-War Chit (which will generate forced random moves and leader casualties), a Fortunes-of-War Chit (which will cancel the next chit drawn from the cup) and the CIC Chits (which allow the player to select any Brigade to activate in his army, even for a second time). In the longer scenarios, there is also a Lull in the Battle Chit which will speed play and simulates the forces becoming tired and hesitant as the battlefield has evolved into a chaotic, smoky and unmanageably-tangled landscape. All these chits are placed into the same cup and drawn by either player.

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The Battle of Serafim Farm – a Playtest AAR from Gallipoli, 1915

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GallipoliTABp500“The Infantry simply cannot get forward against those guns. They will see them coming from miles away.” Lord Hamilton chewed on his mustache.

Then the answer, my good man, is that they must not see us. Let me remind of you of the night attack by the Greeks against the Trojans – Troy is just down the road you know …”

And so was born the plan that led to the Victory at the Battle of Seraphim Farm, and the downfall of the Ottoman Empire.

In November 1914, the Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers. By December, Russia was in trouble after being defeated by the Germans at the Battle of Tannenburg. Britain and France urgently searched for a way to send supplies to their Russian ally. The easiest route was by sea – from the Mediterranean, through the Dardanelles, and across the Black Sea. But the Dardanelles passed through the heart of the Ottoman Empire, who had barred them with minefields and forts. A combined Anglo-French fleet tried to force the Turkish passage but lost 5 battleships on the minefields. And so the Imperial War Council gave Sir Hamilton five divisions and the task of taking the forts for the landward side.