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Thursday, April 1, 2021

Battle for Vizerrara Pass

Battle for Vizerrara Pass Table

Graham arranged for an early morning (late afternoon for Graham) two-player game of For Whom the Dice Rolls (FWTDR).  Given my planning from the previous FWTDR game (see Situational Awareness on the Wargaming Table), the pre-battle briefing was just that; brief!  I was given a rough map of the area, my Republican Order of Battle, and a vague objective.  No information on the enemy was provided, at all.  My Republicans will be entering the table from the bottom map edge while the Nationalists will be arriving from the top map edge.  For all I know, the Nationalists may already be on the table and occupying the town.  The Republican objective is to control the pass.  Artillery and Off-Table Assets for the Republicans are limited.  Who knows what the Nationalists may have up their sleeves?  This should be fun.

On to my brief battle report from afar.  Graham, I suspect, will be posting much better photos of the action shortly.  

Graham's battle report at: Heading Them Off At The (No) Pass-aran.

Relevant photo description follows each photo.

The Nationalists win initiative and bring on an armored car and an infantry battalion in trucks.  The infantry disembark.  The Republicans bring on a field gun, unlimbering it off the road.  Two Trubia Naval tanks advance on either side of the road while an infantry battalion advances on the right of the main road. 
Nationalists move the armored car up the road to counter the Trubias while the Carlist infantry head for the town.  The Basques move up to the river and halt.
On the left, both armies bring on reinforcements and make their way toward the monastery on the hill.
Reinforcements continue to arrive on board as the Nationalists advance across a broad front.  The Republican Asaltos enter on the right with their armored car in the lead.  A Nationalist airstrike targets the Basques at the river.  They are pinned but not much damaged.
While both sides advance in strength upon both flanks in an attempt to control the high ground, the Trubias in the center bypass the enemy armored car and threaten the arriving reinforcements.  
The Nationalist armored car spins around to attack the trailing Trubia from the rear while the truck-mounted AA attacks the lead Trubia from the front.  Both tanks suffer hits.  Carlist infantry moves from the dangerous open ground to occupy the central town.
The Republican field gun sends a shell up the tailpipe of the Nationalist armored car before opening up on the advancing Carlists on the high ground on the left.  The lead Trubia returns fire upon the AA truck and knocks it out.
The Republicans keep making their way up the left flank along the ridgeline while a third Basque battalion arrives and advances up the road toward the action.  Both Trubias attack infantry in the open.  One battalion is caught in march column on the road.
Both Carlist infantry battalions, attacked by the tanks, panic and flee to the rear!  Their battle is done.
With the threat of Carlist reinforcements in the center gone, attention can turn toward dealing with the flanks.
To start off, the Republicans call in a bomber run, targeting the enemy on the right hill.  Near the town, the Asalto armored car goes up in smoke from close range fire from the town.  Ouch! 
Unfortunately, the bombers misidentify their target and the bomb loads are dropped upon their own troops!  The Asaltos survive the unfortunate friendly fire mishap but are shaken from the experience. 
In the center, the Basques cross the river to threaten the town while the Asaltos on the right hill attempt to regain their composure.  The Carlists opposite the Asaltos use this opportunity to attack.
On the Republican left, two battalions of Basques move into position to threaten one Carlist battalion among the hills.  The first close assault is repulsed but the enemy has been softened up in a crossfire.  In the center, the two Trubias drive off to the foothills to support the beleaguered Asaltos.  The tanks are attacked by infantry and the infantry are driven off.  Well, maybe driven over.
On the right, the Asaltos are driven off the high ground with heavy casualties as the Basques in the center advance upon the town.  On the left, two Basque battalions provide preparatory fire into a very hard-pressed Carlist battalion before launching an assault.
The Republican assault goes in at more than two-to-one odds.  The Carlists are thrown back from the heights.
The Carlists rout back across the river.  With more than half of the Nationalist infantry scattered, the Republicans declare victory!  

Well, that was a fun and tense little scenario.  For a two-player game, this was just about the perfect size for two players.  Action was brisk and engaging throughout.  Card play with one player per side seemed smoother than in our recent multiplayer battles.  Both players had opportunities to attack and defend.  Game play seemed much more tactical and meaningful in nature since random off-board assets were kept to a minimum.  Not having much onboard artillery helped smooth the game too.  The rules and the interactions between parts are beginning to gel in my mind.

All in all, it was great fun.  Well done, Graham, for putting together a fine game!

64 comments:

  1. Another nice sized game and loved the brief 'briefing' that I think works better when there are only two players. Not knowing where, in what force and when the enemy may arrive adds another level of 'friction' to the game IMHO.

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    1. It's the size of game the rules were originally written for, although it works fine at the bigger levels. The issues with the multiplayer games have been as much to do with the players not being in the same place - and hence using the same deck and able to talk to each other - as much as there being too many people involved.

      Even tho' I was on the wrong end of this one, I enjoyed it too. Rolling successive "1s" for two Terror Tests didn't help my cause a while lot.

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    2. Steve, yes, this one contained only a "brief" briefing. I guess Graham didn't want me overthinking the whole thing...

      Friction? There was friction, for sure. I think less than in past games though since off-board assets were limited, this time.

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    3. If this is the size of game at which the game was meant to be played, it sure felt right. Just enough BMUs to accomplish a mission yet not too much that either the game bogs down or resources are not fully and usefully utilized. We should play more scenarios of this size.

      Yeah, two "rout" or "retreat off table" results on two sequential Terror Tests are tough situations from which to recover. Those failures blew open your center and made a real mess of things. You took the blow in pretty good cheer, I must add.

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    4. We've all been there where our plans go up in smoke right acros the table! All one can do is laugh about it and hope the die Gods smile on us in the next game;)

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    5. As the host of the event I was relieved that the bad stuff happened to me, and not Jon, a man who got up at 5am just to play a game.

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    6. BAD STUFF hit me too! Bombing my own troops (the best quality on the board BTW) who then promptly failed a Terror Test and ran is not a recommended tactic.

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    7. Well...best at shooting, but didn't really want to be there - hence I was able to Close Assault them with my fanatics and win. Their failed terror test led them to be pinned, not retreat. They went backwards because my brave Requetes bested them in combat.

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  2. Great report on an exciting looking game Jon. I am coming to the conclusion that regardless of era or rule set, you are a pretty sound tactician...you certainly seem to prevail in the majority of games you are involved in!

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    1. Glad you enjoyed the battle report, Keith!

      Perhaps my tactics are sound but they were helped by Graham's (Trebian's) two dismal rolls noted in his commentary above.

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  3. A nicely scaled action and almost a symmetrical map, would make for a good generic scenario for testing rules of several periods.

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    1. Norm, for these rules, two players, and about three hours of play time, I think this is an optimal situation. We both had plenty of options and approaches we could have employed to reach our goals. Wait! I don't know what the Nationalists' goals were!

      As for game boards, Graham sets up what I consider a very simple, elegant, and pleasing table. Always a pleasure to game on it.

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  4. What an excellent challenge. The rules do seem well poised in terms of scale for a typical SCW action. Good to see it play out.

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    1. This posed a good challenge, for sure! The Basque victory was helped by aggressive armor tactics and an unlucky opponent!

      As noted in a comment above, this size action is well-suited to the rules and to the number of troops one player can comfortably and efficiently put into use.

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    2. One of the issues with playing the larger games is that I have shrunk the playing area to 6x4 to get as much on the camera angle as possible. If we were all in Shedquarters then with 2 or more brigades I would widen the playing area to anything from 8' - 12', and then have several brigade on brigade actions running in parallel, to keep everyone involved. Running games over Zoom offers both opportunities and challenges.

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  5. If this wasn't ma "meeting engagement" I don't know what is. Fog of War is a great aspect of a wargame to make it tricky for the players to stay on their toes and keep a fluid mind during the game.

    Fun read Jon, thanks.

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    1. This was a meeting engagement, no doubt. Only the Nationalists had reliable intel, though. This was a good scrap with lots of action. No one sat on their hands in this one.

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    2. The battle was based upon the various actions to the north of Madrid in autumn 1936, when both sides were trying to take control of the various mountain passes. Modern battles where both sides are attacking at the same time are quite rare, I think, due to the planning involved. However, early on in the SCW there were lots of flying columns of this size, mounted on trucks, dashing around and liable to run into one another. I have a couple more similar scenarios up my sleeve.

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  6. It was interesting to follow the progress of the game. How many historical eras do you cover ...

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    1. Glad you found it interesting, Valentine. How many historical periods? A dozen, at least!

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  7. The vagaries of the briefing and opposing forces would have certainly made for a tense few opening moves.

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    1. The opening moves were tense but I was relieved to see that the town was not already occupied when the battle began. Of course, it was occupied by the enemy before I could reach it!

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    2. Proper use of the initiative, and sensible use of trucks. That's the key to rapid deployment onto or near objectives.

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    3. Trucks utilized as blocking terrain. Tactic noted!

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    4. Not sure how authentic it was, but it worked.

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  8. Very nice to see, Jonathan. When I first read "Republicans" I thought, "Wait...what? Romans? The terrain doesn't look like..." :)

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    1. The Romans, in this war, were Fascists not Republicans!

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    2. I was going to write a comment and label your post "Republican Fake News" then I realised that might be open to misinterpretation your side of the pond.

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    3. I doubt “Republican Fake News” would be misinterpreted here. Might draw some bots, though...

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  9. Replies
    1. Thanks, Michal! Graham sets a fine looking game table.

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    2. The screen shots have come up really well, given the feed travels over 4,500 miles! Certainly worth me investing in an HD auto focus camera.

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  10. You are still getting a lot out of the hobby, at least May for me. Well done.

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    1. Is there no one you can try a Skype game with? I put off just giving it all a go until I was nudged by a colleague, and i wish now I'd got a grip earlier.

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    2. George, if not for all of the remote gaming via Zoom, my gaming would be almost exclusively solo. You got a Zoom game in last week. That is great!

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  11. Loving the "Blind" dynamics here, adds a whole new level to play.

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    1. The set up adds tension and uncertainty to the planning phase and play, no doubt. Glad you enjoyed it!

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  12. That looks like fun again. I am becoming increasingly drawn to card-activated games but have yet to convince anyone else in either my Napoleonic or Ancients groups to give them a go. I think they see them as a little gimmicky, and yet are happy to watch entire commands sit there inactive due to low initiative dice rolls.

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    1. Thanks, Lawrence! This was a very fine contest and enjoyed by both of us.

      Card activations can be gimmicky but not necessarily destined to be so. In some card activation schemes, a unit may only perform the action described on a particular card. In FWTDR, a unit may perform any action with the correct card suit. A unit may perform multiple actions per turn given the correct suit availability. The crux of the card usage here is really optimal hand management to pursue resource management. There is a big distinction between a "gimmicky" card activation scheme and card activation scheme as a resource management tool.

      FWTDR falls into the latter category and seems to work in limiting and prioritizing scarce resources. The Off-Table Assets do tend to add a bit of the "Take that!" chaos into the game. There is a fine balancing act to not overdoing this piece of the puzzle.

      The designer must decide what process the card activation models in the game.

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    2. Bespoke card decks can be a bit of an issue, but they normally perform a different function to the use of standard cards in the game, as JF points put. My desire was to enable players to develop each turn simple tactical plans with a degree of short term control. The more complicated the plan, requiring more than a few activations comes with an increasing amount of risk. I have turned, generally, against simple dice based activation as a run of bad luck can just ruin a player's evening. I've been in a few where I've rolled a "1" failed activation, passed the turn back to an opponent who moves all of his toys on a series of rolls, before I get the turn back and roll another 1. The third time it happened in a row I concluded that it wasn't much fun. With the cards luck is evened out if each side has their own deck and you do get to move your figures about. With firing it's less of an issue. I can accept missing the target, but not being able to move stuff at all is just plain irritating.

      The Off Table Asset system is adjustable by game and I know Jon thinks its a bit random as you can't control what you get and when it turns up and it can be devastating or just a mild irritation: that's exactly the effect I was aiming for and gives a realistic outcome without over complicating the system.

      If I was a well known rules writer with a 1,000 followers I could design a bespoke deck of cards with all the bells and whistles in it which you could all buy, along with mdf laser cut markers that you buy with the rules in a bumper intro pack for $75, but I just find that annoying, so I use standard playing cards and make home printable markers available for free.

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    3. Graham, I was not complaining about the randomness of off-table assets; simply stating my personal observation. As for using a standard 52 card deck, I think it works well and is something to which almost everyone has easy access.

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    4. If I were running it in person, then both sides would have the 50 card Spanish card deck, with swords, cups, coins and clubs. Just because I could. You can admit that you don't like OTAs. You do seem to drop them on your own troops more than anyone else.

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    5. ...and fail Terror Tests with ease. You know, the ONLY Terror Test I have passed is the test on your newly painted Basques! Everyone else has run away in all of our games. Perhaps your new Basques have some grit?

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    6. Command and Colors is the only card activation game I have played and when I first read the rules I remember thinking that not being able to move entire wings or the centre etc. must have been a misinterpretation on my part, but that sort of inactivity never lasts long and it really comes down to saving the correct cards and trying to play them at the right time. A few weeks ago we played a DBMM game where I must have thrown a 1 three or four turns in a row for our largest command which ultimately cost us the game.

      Both have their basis in reality as command paralysis is a real phenomenon, but the thing that annoys me about DBMM is that it appears to want to represent itself as much as an historical recreation and yet still manages to feel very gamey at times, whereas Command and Colors seems to be unashamedly as much about the entertainment. That's not to say I don't enjoy DBMM because I do, but one of the most amusing aspects is when members of the group I game with try to explain some unusual result which normally starts with "Well, that could have happened due to..."

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    7. Commands & Colors card activation just works! You learn to play the cards dealt and try to make the best of any given situation. you must always keep in mind that your opponent is dealing with a similar issue.

      It is more game than simulation but great fun and a game I can almost get everyone of my gaming buddies to play. One benefit is that the games play quickly so switching sides and trying again rarely poses a time constraint. As a "game" it is great fun. For the ancients version, it is not an unbelievable simulation either.

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  13. Very nice report Jonathan! I could follow along the action well. You’re becoming really adept at the remote gaming and I’m glad your getting the opportunities. Able to try a bunch of different rules and periods. 😀

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    1. Thank you! Good that my report was coherent. I have been playing lots of different rules, for sure. My part in the remote games is quite simple. I dial in, give orders, roll dice, and watch. No work on my end. The remote GM does all of the real work for which I am very grateful.

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    2. The remote GM gets a lot of exercise walking round the table moving the troops for both sides.

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  14. Brilliant report with the annotations to photos really helping, thanks Jonathan! SCW is an interesting period to consider.

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  15. Good post for Saturday breakfast reading.

    This reads like what I might think of a "classic" wargame. Hard to define that but put aside the details and rules specifics and I could see a report of a similar game appearing in an issue of the Courier or Gene McCoy's Wargamers Digest in the 70's or 80's as easily as on the net today.

    Might be best if I don't think about that anymore.

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    1. I was a Wargamers Newsletter lad myself.

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    2. Ross, good to see this made an enjoyable breakfast companion. I agree, the game does have that classic and minimalist elegance to it, doesn’t it? I could find something like this in WD, for sure. Now, that was a classic magazine and my first, formal introduction into the hobby. I still re-read my copies.

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  16. Entertaining and interesting action with, I think, a nice feel for the period, plus you get to be the good guys for once!
    Best Iain

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    1. "Nice feel for the period". Thank you!! That is exactly what I'm aiming for with the rules.

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    2. Glad you enjoyed the battle recap, Iain! Are there any "good" guys in this conflict? I think it may devolve into a choice between the lesser of two evils.

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    3. There are certainly bad guys. The Basques just wanted to be left alone. W

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    4. I guess I was taught "we won" the Spanish civil war and that Franco and the nationalists were the good guys, later research has lead me to feel that while there were certainly excesses and abuses on the Republican side ,they were still on balance more the good guys than the side supported by the Nazis and fascists!
      Best Iain

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    5. Did you go to school in Spain?

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    6. No North London, finchley, in the pre national curriculum days,in a Catholic boys school with a history teacher who was a priest who's main repertoire was Stalins show trials, Mussalini, the best leader Italy has ever had and of course how we won the Spanish civil war, complete with necrophiliac rape of nuns by red guards, well it was the nearest we got to sex education in those days!
      Best Iain

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    7. Iain, you offer up a great deal of your childhood that may require some effort to unpack and analyze.

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    8. Can't see that lesson passing Ofsted these days. Our game would have confused him. Two groups of good Catholics knocking seven bells out of each other.

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  17. Great report Jonathan. You are sure packing in the games of late, albeit not face-to-face.

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    1. Thanks, Mark! Zoom, the next best thing to being there!

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