Enfilade: the games

I didn't do a really good job of taking pictures of my own games, but I'll share what I have.

Friday Night: Tripwire- The Straits of Hormuz


Dave and I had six willing participants for the game.  Let's face it, modern naval combat is fairly unique at a game convention.  Andrew, Steve, John and Brian chose the Iranians and Andy and Chris managed the Americans.  It was different than our playtest in some ways, but very similar in others. The Americans, again, chose the LCS 1 and the bunch of American and UAE  gunboats and missile boats.  The Iranians went a bit different direction with two groups of Boghammars, and one each of China Cats and the Tir torpedo boats in reserve.  What we wanted was the tension of when to start fighting, and we got it.  Lots of bluster and warning until  Andy Doty's Cyclone stepped on a mine.  Then it was missiles galore.  The Iranians game out on the short end of this fight, with many losses, but they clearly won the propaganda fight with the Americans starting the shooting.

An American Cyclone gunboat tripped over a mine and began the entire incident

Captured live on CNN, Exocet missiles streak toward and IRGN Thondar class missile boat, and a fishing trawler (??!!) Hmm, Charles Taylor just got 50 years.  Andy Doty?

Saturday Morning

This was the only period I didn't have anything going on.  I didn't sleep much the night before so I wandered the Bring and Buy and dealer areas, helped out Jim Denberger totaling receipts.  Just kind of tried to wake up. 

American troops emerge from their water transport and mass for their advance against the Spanish positions.

Saturday Afternoon-Chickasaw Bluffs Part One: Smoke on the Water

As the morning game period came to a close, I shifted into full fretting mode.  I never playtested the scenario, though I walked through things in my mind many times. Most troubling was that the board was fairly busy and I was concerned the board area wouldn't quite work out.  Thankfully, Mark Waddington gave me a hand setting up and it was fine.

Dave Schueler and Lloyd Bowler ran the American assault on Spanish prepared positions controlling the Mississippi.  The Spanish, controlled by Thomas Moore and Francis Munroe  deployed their Spanish regulars into the redoubt, and waited sleepily for the fun to start.  By turn three, the Americans climbed the steep hill from their boats to the hilltop and were beginning to form for battle, when the Spanish gave the alarm to their camp.  Thomas moved one of his infantry squads out of the redoubt, to receive the attack, but retreated back in a hail of gunfire.  As the Americans spiked the Spanish guns, they began to close in on three sides of the redoubt.  Just as things began to look hopeless for the defenders, reinforcments arrived from the camp.  Choosing to mount one of their militia units, Francis hurled the cuera lancers at the Americans, and really did do nasty stuff, but there were enough Americans to drive them off.  Though the Spanish were able to hold on to the redoubt, the Americans with their long range riflemen were sufficient to inflict unanswered damage, and they surrendered.

An American infantry squad masses in formation

Spaniards of the Louisiana Regiment awake to find the Americans ready for a fight.

Yikes, lots more Americans than they counted on.

It was actually a nice game of back and forth.  All played well and it was fun.

Saturday Night-Chickasaw Bluffs Part Two: Just a big Indian Fight

This is the game I did playtest and it went badly sideways.  Sam, Mark and Tim played the Indians while Doug, Brian and Scott ran the Americans.  The playtesters suggested the Americans be allowed to set on to the table two feet rather than the 18" I allowed.  It was a disaster.  On the first turn, the Americans, getting ready to cross the little creek were blasted by Indians.  The militia was routed and the regulars were mauled.  Though the Chickasaw units were also weakened, they had plenty of reserves, and when I called the game, were in danger of surrounding the advancing regular units. Yecchhh.
Sunday Morning-Atlantic Blockading Squadron, in the Gulf

Three ironclads looking for something wooden to ram.

David Sullivan and I agreed to host a Sail and Steam Navy game at Enfilade some time ago, but didn't finalize its contents until Wednesday night.  It had some interesting elements-Confederate ironclads attempting to break through some Union blockaders at Mobile.  The rebels had the ram Tennessee, the sidewheel ironclad Nashville, and the barely armored steamer Baltic.  Together they sailed through early morning fog toward the Union fleet.  The Tennessee rammed and sank the wee monitor Neosho.  The Baltic absorbed, sort of, the scalding effects of having a steam line severed. But heavily armored Nashville and Tennessee were sort of the "men about town" administering nasty shots with their Brooke rifles.  Well, until their stacks were shot away and then they were sort of the "cripples about town," absorbing the broadsides of Hartford, Iroquois, and a fine supporting cast as well.  Needless to say, this turned out badly for the Confederates. 

A glimpse down the barrels of a pair of 7" Brooke rifles.

The Hartford, ready to let fly with a broadside.

Bonus round: Sunday afternoon-Crysler's Farm

In the weeks before the convention, Mark, Doug and I agreed we'd try out a War of 1812 battle, Crysler's Farm.  Fought in 1813 near Montreal, it's one of those tried and true American disasters.  The heart was willing but the brain was petrified, so the attack failed.  We agreed to play using Regimental Fire and Fury, but it's a challenge for scenario designers because the British are so badly outnumbered.  The Americans, rated as trained, advanced against the Brits and just sort of ran them over.  Unfortunately, in the actual battle the American commanders, that slimy bastard James Wilkinson, was quite ill, and his sub-commanders lacked talent.  The Brits pretty much held them off all day. We definitely need to do some fiddling as I expect we'll host this game next year on the 200th anniversary.

A full weekend of hosting.  I really didn't get around to see as many games as I would have liked.

Last of the Enfilade prep.

Spirit of CNN flits past the LCS-4 Coronado, likely drawing boos and perhaps .50 caliber fire.

Enfilade  begins Friday.  Unfortunately I have to teach that day and I'll leave from school with my fully packed car.  I have to be pretty careful and meticulous in my packing, so this year I've made a pretty long list.  I'm running or helping to run four events, but most of the prep and packing comes in my Chickasaw Bluffs game.  The Straits game is minor because it's a naval game.  The Sail and Steam Navy is still up in the air, but I'm hoping David Sullivan will let me know what ships to bring.  There is also the matter of the Sunday afternoon War of 1812 game Mark Waddington, Doug Hamm and I are playing.  Lots of stuff. It's going to be a busy three days.

Fire Scout drone screens LCS-1 Freedom.  I didn't get a good comparison shot with Coronado to show the size difference.  Those pics were more blurry than usual.

Anyway, I've added some goodies to my Straits of Hormuz vessels.  First, I painted and mounted the two MQ-8 Fire Scout drones that come with my LCS-2 model.  They are nothing to paint, and the mounting turned out to be easy too. The Fire Scouts are intended for reconnaissance purposes, armed chiefly with sensors and a laser range finder.  There was some talk of arming them with rockets, but a couple of crashes in March have got the lot of them grounded at the present time.

A nice look from the side and above to show the size difference between Coronado and the Iranian vessels.  Unfortunately the Iranians seriously outgun the much larger vessel.

I also painted up one more small vessel.  I believe that what the Straits game needed was press coverage.  I had one little left over vessel from PT Dockyard that Dave Gregory sent me as an experiment.  I think it's an MAS boat, an Italian torpedo boat, but what the heck.  I painted the hull white and superstructure red and stuck a CNN flag on the back.  If I had one more, I'd paint it up for al Jazeera.  We talked, while we were doing the walk through, about the public opinion factor.  I don't know if Dave included it in the final scenario, but maybe it will make players nervous.  Besides, it's a naval game which are generally short on the cute factor.

Yeah, this was a mistake.  The CNN vessel is about an inch long and 1/8" tall.  The flag is only 1/8" long.  Magnified it has lots of flaws.  I'm okay with it.  Looks fine on the table.

I've included a couple more photos of  of the big Independence class LCS just for a size reference.  Damn it's big.

Revenge of the Boghammers

Three missiles fired from the China Cats in the background rush toward the LCS Freedom.

Today was the day of the Staits of Hormuz playtest.  Daveshoe and I hauled our ships out to Game Matrix and met son Casey and new friend Charlie Berlemann to try out our game.

I called the scenario Tripwire, not sure it works, but Dave developed a fine scenario based on the closing of the straits by mines.  The Iranian player has to defend the minefield, while the American mission is to clear the minefield, seize any potential mine layer and fight off any Iranian attacks.

Any Dave Schueler scenario requires the players to make choices, and this was no different. Charlie was the American player and chose a Freedom class Littoral Combat Ship and a six vessel battle group including two U.S. Cyclone class patrol boats and four United Arab Emirates missile boats and gunboats.

Casey and I were the Iranians and chose four battle groups.  We settled on two groups of three China Cat missile boats, a group of one Zaraf class rocket boat and four Boghammer class patrol boats, and a group of four Tir class torpedo boats that would enter the game later.

Two of the Iranian groups began the game escorting vessels through the minefield.  I took the Boghammer group escorting a trawler through the mines.  Casey had one of the China Cat groups and escorted a minelaying auxiliary masquerading as a freighter.

One of the escorting Boghammers in the foreground trains its 75mm recoilless rifle on an advancing group of American and United Arab Emirates vessels.

The hands of Charlie Berlemann moves more US and UAE vessels.  Soon he'll move his MH-60 helicopter to the trawler in the foreground and the die will be cast.

Of course Charlie acted aggressively against the minelayer, and attacked my fishing trawler.  He dispatched his helicopter and fired shots across its bows to get it to stop.  Boghammer crews filmed the whole thing for YouTube and Al Jazeera and shouted insults at the American pilot.  I immediately turned my speedy little boats around to give attention to the passel of American and UAE vessels.

Freedom launches a mine hunting MH-60, as it moves to the middle of the board.

After one turn of fire a Boghammer is sunk and another is badly damaged, the trawler is sinking.  However the striped Cyclone is also crippled.

In the next turn a UAE gunboat fired into the engine room of the trawler and badly damaged it. Given all the diplomatic cover I needed, I opened fire on my larger adversaries with recoilless guns and rpgs.  The opening salvo badly damaged one of the Cyclones, and wrecked one of the UAE gunboats.  Fire from Zaraf's multiple rocket launcher damaged an additional UAE gunboat.  Machine gunners on the Boghammers shot down the offending helicopter.

Round one to the Boghammers, but retribution was coming.  Fire from the larger ships sank one of the little patrol boats, and wrecked two more.

However the turn was not over.  The Freedom plunged into the mine field and detected one of the mine locations.  Her helicopter flew off trying to find more.  Unfortunately, with all the the commotion to the north, Casey decided the time was ripe to unleash his TV guided C-701 missiles from his China Cats.

Two hits by C-701 TV guided missiles strike Freedom, leading to her demise. Game over.

With three missiles in the air, Freedom maneuvered to unmask his RAM short range missiles.  Unfortunately it only brought down one of the missiles and the surviving pair slammed into the LCS.  Freedom sank and brought an end to the scenario.

We debriefed considerably.  There was a lot to like about the scenario.  I loved running the Boghammers, but it's always challenging to the game master to know how other players will run their commands.  Dave is talking about some tweaks, but nothing major is required.  It was a great game. We use David Manley's awesome Bulldogs Away!! rules.  I find them to have the right balance of modern technology and ease of play.