OMM held its second annual Not Going to Historicon Wargame Weekend on Saturday, July 18 and Sunday July 19 for those those who were not heading south to Fredericksburg, VA for Historicon. A total of 12 gamers arrived for the Saturday sessions while eight others arrived on Sunday. We tried new games, existing games, and even experimental games.
SATURDAY GAMES
Battle of the Bulge
First up was a nice Battle of the Bulge Combat Action Command 'Fast Action' game run by rules author Lee Sowers. Currently being beta-tested, this is a streamlined version of Sowers' intense, hyper-tactical CAC that we've all enjoyed playing.
Differences? Gone are the cards for each individual fire-team, replaced by a single sheet of charts, which makes all the condensed statistics easier to handle if a bit less granular. Also, all dice used are d6s, as opposed to the original reliance on d6s and d20s -- again, easier to handle.
Each unit (stand) gets two actions: move, fire, dig-in, overwatch, and so on, although a unit cannot fire twice unless it fires and goes into overwatch, but it can move twice.
In this scenario, each stand was a platoon, although it could easily be transformed into a squad or increased to be a company.
In the game, the Germans had to advance and capture two of the three bridges (preferably all three) by controlling houses (parts of the town) on the opposite bank.
The Germans pushed hard for the bridges, ultimately grabbing the central position of the church next to the river, but the US flank commander Mark Peel rallied and destroyed Tiger, Panther, and Pz IV platoons to stunt the German attack.
Mark Peel, OMM's Dennis Shorthouse, and Bob Nedwich defend the river line.
Regimental Fire & Fury
While the Bulge roared on one table, Troy Turner hosted a nice little six-person Regimental Fire & Fury game featuring some lovely terrain pieces that added to the American Civil War atmosphere.
Makeshift ACW hospital vignette.
L'Art de la Guerre
Cy Taylor ran L'Art de la Guerre, a DBx-ish style game pitting Byzantines and Arab Conquest around the era of Yarmok for six gamers. The Byzantines cleverly performed a flank march and ultimately defeated the Arabs.
The Byzantines attack.
SUNDAY
All Quiet on the Martian Front
The Martians arrived en masse in a Casey Shorthouse-Scott Ippolito game of All Quiet on the Martian Front, trying to overrun the Americans. While advancing along the road, the Americans managed a catastrophic kill on a tripod that cascaded into three other tripods. Yet, the reduced force of Martians advanced, ultimately eeking out a win.
The Martians…before the catastrophic kill.
Kursk Armor Action
Allen Kaplan and Lee Sowers hosted a beta version of a brigade-scale, WWII Kursk game with the magnet-based 6mm figures atop hex movement bases painted with a metallic style paint. As losses or retreats are made, the 6mm stands are removed from the game or moved to other hex bases. Clever use of Rustoleum, that.
Each micro-armor unit fires and saves individually, with three hits a kill, two hits a retreat, and one hit a possible retreat. The game saw the Germans advance, but were ultimately stopped by Soviet reserves.
Hex-to-hex with backup, the Germans engage the Soviets.
L'Art de la Guerre
More L'Art de la Guerre finished out an enjoyable weekend.
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