2nd Impression of Fist Full of Tows 3. 1st play through or stumble through maybe.

First all I want to explain why this post is a bit late.  There were two factors.  The first was that we live in a stick built Victorian house.  We have been living in it for over ten years.  There was one room that had the same wall treatment as when we moved in and that was in the main bedroom.  I have stripped wall paper in a lot of rooms.  A mixture of hot water and liquid fabric softener does wonders.  My daughters room had seven layers of wallpaper and this mixture handled the task with ease. Well not so much in this room.  I struggled with the first wall and there were only three layers of wallpaper on the walls.

Does this look like eleven hours of work?  Well boys and girls it is.  I ended up having to score every square inch of the top layer in order to get it off.  I think I know why it was such a task.  The wall was not sized and I think the wallpaper was prepasted.  And even though it was prepasted, they pasted it any way.  It took me four weekends of pretty steady work to finish the room The other reason was the a flu bug hit our household.  Not a good thing.  Now onto the review.


As I stated on my previous entry I have been looking for a micro armor rule set and the main criteria was the ability to play both WWII and Modern conflicts.  I gave Fist Full of Tows a try because one can play the a fore mentioned periods. So onto what I think about the game and a short bat rap.

I am not going to give you a blow by blow description of every mechanic of the game.  We played a game that had elements of a BOAR Armored Infantry Battalion with FV-432 ,  Chieftains  and  FV-438 Swingfires in support.  They were rated as excellent troops.  I rolled for the troop quality for both British and Soviet, more on that later.

The  Soviets had elements of a BMP Motor Rifle Regiment, with BMP-1s, T-64s and BRDMs.  These troops were rolled up as marginal.  In hind sight I would not have let the Soviets be marginal troops and that is a bad thing, especially in the first game as I will elaborate later on.

I did not give either side artillery I tested that separately, I wanted to concentrate on ground combat, so no artillery, aircraft or helicopters. The map is laid out as follows

It was a simple scenario, Soviets need to take the bridge and the British need to deny the bridge to the Soviets.

The British set up was on the lee side of the hills on the closest side of the river to the Soviet attack.  The Soviet commander was Comrade Colonel Yakov Wonocottovich and the British commander was Baron Ted of Bender.  Comrade Wonocottovich and Baron Ted from now on.

 I wrote earlier that I was going to explain about  troop quality. One of FFT 3 design philosophies is that troop quality is one of the main differentiation between troops.  Better trained troops fire faster and can sight vehicles father away.  I think this is a fairly well accepted thought. this was the line NATO always stated that is why they would win if the Soviets invaded Western Europe, NATO units were better trained. The British had Excellent troops and this gave them a +1 to hit and a +1 to the rate of fire.  The Soviets were marginal troops that means that they are very very fragile.  They take any of hits, they are likely to get suppressed easier and fail quality checks (eliminated).  They have a -2 to hit and that is on a six sided dice.  So that has a huge impact on the Soviet to hit chance.  The marginal rating also gives  the Soviets a -1 Gun ROF Modifier.  The Soviet tanks were T-64s and their rate of fire is two.  So the marginal troop rating cuts the T-64 units rate of fire by half.  This is one of those, I will know better the next time I will play.  This had a pretty big impact on the game as it should have.

Here is the turn sequence.

At first glance one will say this is a lot to keep track of, yes and no.  You are not going to use every phase and step in each turn.  For me,  Comrade Wonocottovich and Baron Ted we had to concentrate on which phase we were on.  I am going to get a small magnet board and with a label maker write all these do the magnet board.  I will then have a marker for each adversary and move the magnetized marker along the phases.  It move very fast and I know the next game we play it will move even faster.


 Comrade Wonocottovich is an ex US tanker so he was going to use Soviet tactics.  First up would be the BRDMS as scouts and progressively larger formations of Soviet units.

His marginal troops saw nothing, but the British did.  Baron Ted draws first blood with a Swingfire.  the second turn, Baron Ted gets a side shot on some T-64s, boom no more T-64s.  Each unit has two armor ratings, a front and side.  You want to get side shots, especially against tanks.

  I will tell you, that is the last time that he hits anything with the Swingfire.  If you follow this blog at all our group calls this phenomenon Ted dice.  Here are all his throws with the Swingfire throughout the whole game, remember low is bad.

The Comrade Wonocottovich's 2nd and third echelon moves on the table.

 Comrade Wonocottovich is now starting to use overwatch.

So through three turns Baron Ted cannot hit anything with his Swingfires.  Comrade Wonocottovich's troops cannot see any troops at all.  One of the reason's is that the Soviets cannot see diddly squat due to the poor troop quality.  The other reason is that there are only two infantry units that are on the sme side of the hill that the Soviets are on.

One of the design features of the Swingfire is that an infantry unit could remotely guide the missile onto the target.  The FV-438 could be parked safe behind a hill out of line of sight and still fire the missile.   Of course it did no good for Baron Ted due to Ted's Dice.

The Final Push from the Soviets.

 On the last turn the Soviets started to have to make Quality Checks and failing them due to the troop quality.  It was a British victory.

I started setting up at noon, talked a bit before playing the game and we finished the game in about two and a half hours.  That is with a lot of turning pages in the rule book, looking for the correct chart and double checking to make sure we are doing it correctly.  Fist Full of Tows 3 plays fast.Comrade Wonocottovich had looked over the free introductory rule set available here.  He was prepared not to like and thought it would not play fast enough.  He really liked the rule set and did think it played fast.

Comrade Wonocottovich and I tested the Artillery rules separate.   We conducted an artillery strike in  a town with infantry in heavy cover, results were suppressed infantry. An artillery strike at tanks in light cover, one unit suppressed one unit was not.   Two artillery strikes on IFVs in the open,  both them had the same results,  One IFV unit was suppressed and one had to make a quality check and it failed.  So one IFV unit was eliminated in each strike.  The last arty strike was on tanks in the open, result were two suppressed units of tanks.

Those results seemed pretty much what one would expect from an artillery strike.  I know the game would have played out differently with artillery.  I live by a couple of philosophies, one being the KISS method.  That stands for Keep It Simple Stupid.  So arty was out on our first run through.

  As a group we have three main criteria.  Does it play fast?  Does it give you a plausible conclusion throughout to the end of the game?  Is it fun to play?  I can say that FFT 3 achieves all three.

Two quibbles about the game I already wrote about in the previous post. 

Another one and it is splitting hairs.   Most of the TOE's regarding NATO units are after the 1980s.  So some research is in your future if that is a period that you are going to game. This is just a minor problem though.

I have been looking for years for a game that I could use for both WWII and Modern combat.  I happy to say I have found it.  I am just irritated that it took this long, but better late then ever.

Thank you for reading

Mike

Trees for the gaming table on the cheap

I was walking through a local craft store after Christmas and happened onto their clearence area with all the Christmas leftovers.  I happened onto a fake evergreen garland.

It was a $1.50 and it occurred I could use the sprigs for making trees for 3/6mm or small trees and brush for 15mm.   You will need a few things, wire cutters to remove the sprigs from the garland. Something to base them on, I used fender washers and something to make the foliage  adhere to the washer.

I used Milliput for the adhesive and it made a little contour on the washer.  I also paint my washer black.  I think when they are plain steel, the washers stand out too much  Just put a small amount of Milliput on each washer and start sticking those sprigs.  I then applied glue and dipped the base in flocking.

The following photo is the result of less then an hours work.  Also the photo that I took of the garland had all of the trees that I made and then some.  I ran out of Milliput.  I think I can get two to three hundred trees out of the garland.

That is a lot of trees for not much money. 

Thank you for reading.

Mike

Some of my haul from Ground Zero Games year end special.

As everyone can attest, GZG gives outstanding service and with the end of the year special it is a great value too.  I am sure he works like a dog when the special runs.  I got the package in about five days from when he stated that it was being shipped and I live in the USA.

The first miniature is the  MRAP-C light armored patrol vehicle.  One has to have something to haul ones troops about.  It is of metal construction and I used ten parts, I did not use the large brush guard that was included.  I primed with Vallejo white primer and the overall paint is Iraqi Sand by Vallejo.  The windows, and lamps were painted with silver.  I let that dry and I used Blue, Red and Yellow clear paint by Vallejo.  I coated the miniature with a coat of gloss lacquer, I think I was using Rustoleum.  I use the brand that is on sale when I walk into the store.  I then put a black was of Future floor wax and DiDi's Magic  Ink.  I left them quite dirty from the wash.  I wanted them to look grimy from hard use.  I then put a coat of Testers Matte Spray.

The other vehicle was from the free grab bag that was sent to me with the year end sale.  It is unreleased MRAP "Shorty".  I painted it the same way as the previous miniature. The first photo shows the size of this miniature comparative to a Vallejo bottle.

The last photo shows the comparative size between the two miniatures.

A word of warning, there is a lot of filing to be done on these miniatures to make them fit together.  There is a lot of gaps in the miniatures too.  I used quite a bit of filler to hide the gaps and seams.  It took a bit of work, but it is worth it.  These miniatures are great and I know in the future, I will be awaiting the postman knowing that more of these great miniatures will be in the post.

Thank You for reading.

Mike

Another Quick Review of a Cold War Gone Hot, The War That Never Was by Michael Palmer

When writing a review for a book about the cold war going hot, I have a couple of criteria.  The first, is it a good read as Red Storm Rising by Tom Clancy and The Third World War by Sir John Hackett.  The second, can  I get scenarios out of it for games I may want to run.  The War That Never Was does both in spades.

The style of writing is some where in between Clancy's and Hackett's style.  In some instances one knows the thoughts of the characters as in Red Storm Rising, but not through the whole book and Palmer explains the geopolitics as Hackett does in his book.

There is one stark difference though tn this book as opposed to the a fore mentioned books.  This book emphasis non Central European aspects of the conflict.  Do not get me wrong, he does address the conflict in Germany, but the periphery conflicts is the emphasis of this book.
Some of the maps are as follows:

• The Northern Flank
• Libya and the Central Mediterranean
• Greece Turkey and the Aegean
• The Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf 
• The Western Pacific
• Korea and the DMZ

It is interesting reading, not much writing about the Fulda Gap in this book.

The second criteria that I stated before.  The War That Never Was has endless amounts of scenario ideas.  I can get a lot of ideas for land warfare.  Again not your normal West German vs. Soviet MRDs.  One right of the top of my head is Turkey vs. Bulgarian & Soviet Marines.  It also has a lot of land warfare ideas concerning Norway vs. USSR vs. Finland.  Yep, the Soviets thought it would be a good idea to cut through Finland without permission. Did not they learn that lesson before?

There are too many ideas for air combat scenarios to mention them all.  Though the real scenario gems are concerning modern naval scenario ideas.  If you play modern naval games, do yourself a favor and pick this book up.  It would take playing a lot of games to exhaust all the naval engagements that are dealt with in this book.

This book is available through Alibris and Amazon, both in hardcover and soft cover

I highly recommend this book.  I know at sometime in the future I will read this book again and probably more then once

Thank you for reading.

Mike

 

My 15mm miniatures now have bases.

 I wanted to use washers for the bases of my 15mm troops.  I did some research and it was suggested  fender washers are the best, the hole in the center is smaller.  And the size that wash was suggested was 3/4 inch.  I went to our local building supply big box store(Lowes).  I priced the washers and I said to myself, "self there has to be a cheaper source on line".  I posted on The Miniatures Page, a query on a online washer resources.  Rodrick Campbell sculptor and owner of Highlander Studios, Inc.  

Rodrick suggested that I use Bolt depot .  He was right.  I got 1,000 for $32, including shipping.   I ordered them on the evening of the 19th and they arrived on my doorstop on the 22nd.

So I have a butt ton of washers now,  I got them cheap though. 

Thank you for reading,

Mike

A short review of Sails of Glory.

I am going to give a quick review Sails of Glory is a games made by Ares Games. I am not going to go through every turn of our first battle, we did a few things incorrectly and as always you learn a little more with every play through.   The games components are of a very high standard.  The starter kit comes with four ships.

There are also add on ships that one can buy.  The add on ships come with a base, stat cards and maneuver cards.

The above photo shows your damage track, your actions, what sail your are under(Full/Half /Battle/Anchor) and whether you are loading or have loaded guns.  Each ship receives a certain number of actions denoted by the hands along the top of  the card and as your ship takes damage.  The ship has less actions available as the ship receives damage.  One can see the damage on the following photo. 

The following photo shows what actions that are available.

There are raise sail and lower sail actions.  One can shoot Ball, Double shot, Grape Shot and Chain Shot just to name a few.  One pre-plots maneuvers two turns in advance.  There are three sets of maneuver cards, one for no damage to your ship's mast, one for having a mast/masts down and for heading into the wind.

Here are some photos of the game, the only thing Ted did to the miniatures was to put a wash on the sails to bring out some of the detail.

Now for my impressions, it was a blast.  The rules are straight forward and one can choose how detailed they want the game to be.  With plotting your maneuver cards in advance, it makes one really think a bit.  The British players actually struck one another.   One has to decide what actions your are going to do.   And at the beginning of one turn, Ted the owner of the game plotted the port side guns to fire, oops.  His partner Gene in the other ship had maneuvered onto Ted's port-side between Ted and a British ship.  Gene's ship got a shot of double ball, ouch.  It really is a lot of fun.  We played the game in a couple of hours and it felt as if we had played for twenty minutes.  When time passes that quickly, that is a pretty good indication that it was a fun game.  I also believe that it would be a great convention game.   Each player getting one ship which would move the game along.  It takes a while for a ship to get whittled down to being ineffective so a convention player would not be done in a half hour.

Thank You for Reading.

Mike

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