Each year Comrade James and I generally find ourselves together in Sydney at some stage and get together for some gaming fun after hours. This year we christened the new Sydney 'Man Pad' while sampling my
Barmy Bishop Bitter! And an extensive sampling it was...
Death Angel - played a couple of games and tried out the Deathwing and Space Marine expansion sets. The first game saw us take two combat pairs of Terminators each and ended horribly with all Marines KIA barely half way through the mission. The second game we took three pairs of Marines each (using the commensurately increased number of 'Stealers of course) and fought our way through to a down to the wire Victory with four Marines remaining - a mere 66% casualties sustained! Good fun.
Spearpoint 1943 - the first game saw me playing Germans against James's US Forces in a head to head encounter. I started off with a pair of Panthers bearing down on a remarkably resilient Sherman and some screening troops, before I committed a wave of Infantry, support weapons and a Tiger I. James established an effective artillery support line which did some real damage and I was fortunate to sabotage his P-38 Lightning so it never got on the table. He managed to kill off the crews of the Tiger and one of the Panthers, but in the end I was able to overwhelm his infantry line with mortars and MG43 teams and claim the Victory.
We then played with James's newly acquired Village/Defensive Line expansion set - the additional terrain really increases the straying power and survivability of infantry units, who really get chewed up quickly in the standard game. The components are beautifully done and are double sided so you can play in either summer or winter (with snow). I took and infantry and artillery heavy force which did well in the terrain and cleaned up James's Combined Arms force in the rubble nicely!
Apparently the Russian Front expansion for Spearpoint will be a Kickstarter project later this year and I will definitely be pledging up for it.
Patton's Best - we dragged out this classic Avalon Hill hame from the 80s. If you aren't familiar with it, its a solitaire game in which you command a single M4 Sherman and its crew from the US 4th Armoured Division as it breaks out of the Normandy area, crosses France, relieves Bastogne and drives on the Rhine. The game was new to me and we played some introductory engagements to get me ready for a proper campaign to start shortly. The game mechanics are very similar in nature to B-17 Queen of the Skies and you can read a BGG review on it One of the unique aspects of the game is the fog of war and "Tiger shock" effect - essentially the Pz VI Tiger tank caused great consternation to US tank crews. Accordingly, EVERY German AFV is a Tiger and every anti-tank gun an '88' (and they hit like one too) until proven otherwise, so its very much in your best interests to scout well and identify enemy units as soon as possible!
Duel of the Giants - ended up not getting time to play this unfortunately but we dragged it out and looked at the awesome components anyway.
Munchkin Booty. Another recent addition to James's collection, he managed to beat me soundly in two games - love the theme of this game!
Kittens in a Blender. My own new game - who could resist? Essentially the curious cats are exploring the kitchen - save your own cats and make the others pay! Yes, its a twisted and fun as that sounds. James smashed me senseless and we both had a great laugh with it.
Being a game for 2-4 players, I took it home to the family. After the initial outrage and horrified comments we got into it and they were blending the kittens with great enthusiasm! Indeed the Lad showed a particular penchant for sacrificing his own kittens to get everybody else's
' - a tactic reminiscent of General Douglas Haig in my opinion and that eventually won him the game. Nice!
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