Colonial Battlefleet Review and AAR

Over the holiday I got a chance to try out the Colonial Battlefleet game from Steel Dreadnought Games. Below is the After Action Report and a quick review.

Meeting at Procyon

The tensions between the Empire of D and the T Hegemony have erupted into full scale war. The trade lanes outside of Procyon would prove a dangerous meeting ground, as Hegemony taskgroup Dreadnought and the Imperial squadron led by the battleship Wisdom would fire the first shots of the war.

This was a 1200 point game, with default tech levels, the only agreement being that fighters and boarders would be avoided since this would be our first game. Oh, and we would be going into this blind as to the other's fleet composition or ship loadouts, once on the battlemap we told each other which ships were larger than the others, but that was it. I was quite pleased with how we managed to set up and play, even being so unfamiliar with the rules. We took 3 hours total, from opening up the spreadsheet to build some ships to rolling the last die and calling it quits.

Order of Battle

T Hegemony
BBD Dreadnought – 640 tons, with turreted banks of heavy phazers, mag cannons, and anti-neutron torps
BCF Archer – 410 tons. Phazers forward, and the rest taken up with two 3 launcher mounts for its 24 ASGMs
CLR Cheetah – 144 tons. Its sole armament were 3 forward anti-proton torpedo bays spread in 2 hardpoints

Empire of D
BBD Wisdom – 640 tons. A forward firing rail gun, along with turreted banks of phazers and disruptors, and a single ASGM launcher for 8 missiles
BCB Courage – 560 tons, sporting turreted batteries of turbo heavy lasers and heavy disruptors, with a forward bank of anti-neutron torpedos.


Debriefing, Commodore Nomis of the HNS Archer

With our superior command and control we would set the tone of the battle. However it became evident that they would dictate its terms. The Imperial ships started in close formation, we closed in a slightly more open one, with the Dreadnought leading the way, the Archer and Cheetah sheltering along its flank at about three combat sectors distance. The first turn is at extreme range, and we choose a tactical option, and wait for them to close. It turns out that we are in fact, within their range. A stunned shock runs through the crews as they not only fire, but hit with enough force to heavily damage the shields on the Dreadnought, the Imperial ships are running with FC4. Our reply is minimal, as we fire at the larger ship to no effect, its shields are too heavy at this range...there is only one thing to do, close the distance to bring our shorter ranged and hopefully more potent weapons into play.

We choose the tactical option again, the two Imperial ships close to adjacent combat sectors and look to be ready to cross each other next turn. The second turn sees our small flotilla accelerating, we had a delta advantage over them already, running at 5 to their 3, all of our ships increased speed to delta 6. The Imperial ships fire, a deadly volley, that smashes through the shields of the Dreadnought, damaging the heavy phazers right as they line up on the smaller enemy ship, as well as launching an ASGM. Still, the Mag cannons do a number on the enemy shields, allowing torpedoes to get through, although there is no penetration. The Archer launches a full salvo of ASGMs, while the Cheetah continues to hide behind its larger cohorts.

The phazors were quickly repaired, but the ships are crossing at speed, and although the Dreadnought penetrates the larger Imperial ship Wisdom's shields, the combined power of the two capital ships cuts through her shields, an engine room hit seals her fate. Archer fires another salvo of ASGMs, now in sprint mode, there is little that can stop them from hitting on the next turn sequence. Cheetah darts in and fires her torps, but they do little damage against the heavily shielded Courage.

The ASGM's finally come into play, damaging the bridge of Courage, and a disruptor bay on the Wisdom. But it is not enough, the Dreadnought has drifted past the battle, and both enemy ships are lined up for a strike upon her aft shields. Her heavy armor is not enough to save her from destruction. The Archer fires another salvo of ASGM's, and the Cheetah makes use of her superior speed to place herself in the aft arc of the Courage, hammering through her shields with torps. The Wisdom however, in chasing the Dreadnought, is finding it hard to close the distance and support her sister ship. It can still however, punish the Archer with its heavy armament, cutting through the lighter ships shields with ease and damaging one of the ASGM batteries. The Courage as well is able to bring its port facing turrets to bear, the Archer is now down two shield facings, and its F/P shields will be damaged for the rest of the engagement.

Our two ships continue to rake the Courage's aft shields, but a final combined salvo destroys the Courage, it is then that taking stock of the ASGM reserves on the Archer that I decide to retreat, we will use our delta advantage to escape and fight another day. I send our final ASGM stocks in their direction, if only to discourage pursuit. It does not work very well, they burn delta to increase velocity and chase, and once again that heavy long range armament aided by superior fire control comes our way. 12 hull, 10....5.... The girders creak and grown, bridge consoles show red hull breaches across the board, and it all comes down to their final shot with the single heavy rail gun. It misses, and we breathe a sigh of relief. We will live to fight another day.


Results:
Hegemony lost 640 tons
Empire lost 563 tons

Evaluation:
Next time, I won't skimp on fire control. Two of my 3 ships had FC 2 and short ranged weapons, D had a definite range advantage that showed at both the beginning and end of the battle. I overbought on PD given that he had a total of one launcher in his fleet, and he under bought. Even with 3 and 4 PD die my missiles consistently got through, taking his defender down to half health despite my inability to pierce its shields. And having a 3 Delta ship allowed me to plant myself firmly in his rear shields at the end. I closed too fast and didn't start my turn early enough with Dreadnought, thus its early demise, taking out about two thirds of my potential firepower.

The ASGM's were surprisingly effective on my part, partly due I'm sure to the fact that his defender had 50 points of shield in its forward arcs, something that I was hard pressed to cut through, even with my Battleship. In fact, only two flights of 3 were unable to turn and reengage effectively, and even those two were able to herd his ships, if not directly attack them. It helped that they were in effect more maneuverable than his ships. And AV8 ships are very, very hard to crit against, even with 1D10+1 weapons, although I have to say that even my AV6 ship shrugged off his weapons pretty well, suffering only three criticals as it was whittled down to 5 hull, two hardpoints(one empty) and a shield. Which was quite fortunate, since I was hard pressed to repair them.

His evaluation of the battle consisted muttering about not skimping on firing arcs, as after the first two turns, none of his forward firing weapons actually had any impact on the battle. And for him, the ASGM was nothing more than wasted space, especially since he ended the battle with 5 left in the magazine, although the last few turns I think he gave up on them, as a single ASGM against 4PD is pretty useless. He also expressed disappointment on how the battleline ship performed, he may have been able to repair those critical hits easier, but I wasn't making many to begin with. I'm pretty sure he wished it was another defender or a flagship instead, because I won every single initiative roll.

Either way, I think we both agreed that the game was quite enjoyable, and one of the easiest to be able to set up and play on short notice. Being able to work with the spreadsheet and then print out the SSDs was a definite plus. Although I knew that I wouldn't snatch victory out of it once my Battleship went down, I was definitely on the edge of my seat as my fleet tried to pull out a draw, and escape. 5 hull out of my 64 hull BC before I was able to get out of range, now that's a nail biter!


Now some general notes on the rules system. Personally, at about $15 dollars, it's a bargain. There are about 60 pages of play rules, options, and an explanation of equipment, and the remaining 60 pages are split about equally between scenarios, warship construction rules and premade faction ship lists, with a few pages of counters that one can print out. The last two sections can easily be skipped however as it also comes with an excel spreadsheet that makes creating your own ships quick and easy. Illustrations are mostly functional, it's not exactly a pretty product, but they get the job done.

I mentioned before that it only took us about 3 hours to play a game. I would say that about half an hour to an hour of that was setup and creating our fleets. Although there were only a few ships in play, I feel that we could easily expand the fleet and get done in a similar amount of time, due to added familiarity.

As for the rules themselves, the first thing that comes to mind with them is that they are clean. You won't be scratching your head looking for dice, it uses D6s and D10s and that's it. The ship datacards that one can print out hold everything one needs to know about a ship, including the special roles that they can have. Those help define your ship and fleet, whether it's a Battleline ship designed to deal hurt, a light Scout, a maneuverable Rapid Deployment Force ship, etc.

The game may only use two die types, but it uses them well. For example to attack one rolls a die and adds in their fire control, which essentially allows a player to create the best engagement range for their ships. Movement was pretty standard fare, and easy to keep track of with the ship datacards. The fleet construction rules tend to favor a heavier force as opposed to swarms, and it felt a little funny that we both fielded Battleships and Battlecruisers with only my single light cruiser as backup, as opposed to a more balanced force, although this is indirectly modified in some of the scenarios. Perhaps if a campaign supplement came out then this would be addressed.

For the price, I can't say I have many complaints. Essentially this is an excellent generic ruleset for space combat, I could well see myself playing out Star Trek, B5, and other settings, not to mention the recently released Man vs Machine expansion that covers BSG. Although I'm not sure how such a fighter heavy game would play out given that ships can't be stacked.

What wins me over though, is the ease of play. Compared to say, Starfire, Battlefleet Gothic, or Battlespace for example it felt like a breeze, and there was no need to dig out the trusty ruler as long as you have a hex grid. And thus Colonial Battlefleet is liable to become my starship combat game of choice in the foreseeable future.

Moderns Ops Review and AAR

Modern Ops by Pinnacle Entertainment Group is a skirmish level wargame based on the Savage Worlds ruleset. It uses the abbreviated version known as the Showdown rules as well as its own setting rules.

Now for anyone familiar with the Savage World rules, the Showdown set is essentially what happens when you strip off most of the RPG elements and excess fat away to turn it into a lean mean fighting machine. The result is a highly intuitive set of rules that can move fast even if one has little experience with them.

I'm not going to go into the core system, since that's a bit beyond the scope of this post. On the plus side, it lived up to the expectation of Fast, Furious, Fun. Highlights included the unit cards that are available for free, these kept bookkeeping down to a minimum, essentially all we had to recall was how many bennies we had left, and some of the expendable ammo(grenades and RPGs). The pace never bogged down, even though the units might have from enemy fire, and the setting rules made it appropriately deadly for the genre.

On the down side, there were portions of the rules that were either vestigial or lacking. Close Combat rules and mount rules were included, but there was no real follow up on either. There weren't any living mounts statted out, and there was no section for hand to hand weapons in the armory. At best one could look at the batons that the swat teams wielded, but I felt that given how they emphasized how important Ganging Up bonuses were, especially to untrained troops, that they should have at least included a few. Even if they just had the point values for the baton, a bayonet and knife/sword it would have been enough. Also the militia units refer to not being able to use the aim action, but from what I can see, that was one of the actions cut out from the rules. Suppressed weapons were another item that didn't really have an explanation aside from the obvious. Finally, nowhere could I find the point values associated with the various abilities and edges.

I would also have liked some more Savage Tales to have come with this product, but perhaps that's just me being spoiled, as some games only come with a single or no scenarios. But on to the AAR.

We rolled up a meeting engagement, and decided on a 1000 point target, we both ended up relatively close to the number. I took the role of the Taliban commander and my opponent taking over as the German commander. We put together a few ruined city blocks for them to fight over. For this game we played a bit loose on the Loyal rules, as he wasn't happy about having to retrieve corpses, and in turn I was able to play loose with my morale checks, which would occur whenever 25% of a team is lost. Which, in a 4 man team means that I would be checking for every casualty, so I said it would trigger when >25% was lost in a single turn.

German Forces
Panzergrenadiere Gruppe(644 points)
-1 NCO with G36
-5 Riflemen with G36
-2 Soldiers with MG3
Sniper Fireteam(388 points)
-2 Snipers with G3-SD1
-2 Soldiers with MG3
=1032 points

Taliban Forces
Taliban Command Fireteam(353 points)
-1 Taliban Warlord Leader with AK-47(Wild Card)
-1 Soldier with RPG-7
-1 Machinegunner with RPK
-1 Soldier with AK-47
Taliban Fireteam(2x)(253 points each)
-1 Soldier with RPG-7
-3 Soldiers with AK-47
Taliban Sniper (166 points)
-1 Sniper with Dragunov SVD(Wild Card)
=1025 points

I'll be referring to the placement of units by my perspective at the Taliban edge of our 2x6 table. The Command Fireteam set up along the far left, with one fireteam in the middle and one on the right, the sniper set up along the right hand side as well. The German forces mirrored mine, their 8 man team on the left and their sniper team on the right.

The first turns were mostly feeling each other out, but some skilled sniper fire by the Germans pinned down my rightmost fireteam, shaking the RPG man. My own sniper returned fire from the second floor of a building, but had little success. It was not an even matchup. I outranged them, their guns considered my sniper as in medium range, while mine could reach them as close range. However this was evened up by the fact that my sniper only had a D10 in shooting while the German snipers were sitting pretty with D12s. I quickly learned that their body armor(giving them a toughness of 11! Most of my soldiers had a 5 or 6) kept them relatively impervious to small arms fire.

Along the left side of the board both sides inched towards each other. I started things off with a volley of RPG shots, which quickly took out one of the sniper team. After that my opponent kept all his units relatively spread out, which helped reduce casualties, but kept him from a concentrated assault as my command team moved into position.

Midgame was when I learned the importance of not bunching up as well. The German soldiers were keeping their heads down due to my command team, I believe that one rifleman and one machinegunner had been killed by my MG or RPGs, my AK-47 armed soldiers were having trouble hitting or damaging his(although that might have been due to the dice more than the mechanics), again due to the body armor. His snipers had concentrated on my RPG soldiers, taking out the one in my command team and in my right hand side fireteam. My middle fireteam had bunched up, minus the RPGman who had been shaken by sniper fire and had not caught up with the man bunch, but a well placed grenade took out three of them in one hit. What was amazing was that the RPGman was able to make his morale check, acing it and continuing on. Meanwhile, every German soldier that was getting close enough to toss a grenade was being taken out with accurate MG fire.

The endgame was a continued attempt to flush out my command team with grenades, and accurate sniper fire chipping away at the remainder of my forces. By the time we ended due to hunger the tally was pretty close. I had lost 7 of my 13 men, including my leader, while he had lost 7 of his 12. 6 of those were from his Panzergrenadieres, leaving only his leader and a MG man from that squad. The remaining casualty was from his sniper team, which really didn't move all that much throughout the game.

I was actually rather surprised at how well the Taliban forces did given that of my 13 soldiers, 9 of them had weapons that barely scratched the body armor of the German troops. My opponent's major complaint was that the German squads were too big, in order to avoid a grenade or RPG landing in the middle and taking multiple soldiers out, he was forced to essentially move his forces in a chain, which limited firepower at a point. Also he felt that the two MG men with his sniper team would be better served near the front, as opposed to with his sniper on overwatch. Actually that whole team could have moved up and flanked my forces, given that my own sniper was having trouble doing any damage other than perhaps shaking a unit for a turn or two.

My own problems included, of course, the fact that the body armor made most of my shots harmless, it was only due to the luck of my MG(acing damage repeatedly) that I was able to do as much damage as I did. In general I felt that there was a little trouble with interrupting actions, as we had two ties before resolving an interrupt, I think the one on hold should win ties personally, so I might houserule that. My leader's fireteam was waiting for them to move into the open, but lost the interrupt and got a grenade down their throat for their trouble.

All in all, a really fun game that played fast and was suitably deadly. Unlike the Chain Reaction ruleset, this game doesn't almost run itself, but the Modern Ops ruleset is very intuitive, and most likely second nature to anyone who has Savage Worlds. So, aside from the above gripes I'm quite happy with it. It could have been executed better, so it's not perfect, but it gets done what it set out to do.

Carriers at War

Midway

Early Morning, June 4^th, 1942

Seaplanes fill the air.

8:40 A seaplane from Midway spots a Japanese carrier group, a heavy and light carrier escorted by an unknown number of cruisers and destroyers, but is this the main group that US codebreakers have been warned about?

12:00

Midway command thinks so, for the next 20 minutes the Japanese TF comes under air attack. Heavy fighter cover and AA claims a heavy toll, the CAP accounts for 14 kills and 7 damaged, the AA damages 4 before the US fighters disengage, without a single successful strike.

16:40

A Search plane from Zuiho has detected a large US carrier force, 4 carriers. A strike is debated, but there is no way that the planes would arrive before sundown, and the smaller northern force cannot risk its air assets in a dusk strike, and even more dangerous, a nighttime landing.

June 5^th

6:50

Dawn brings a strike at the Jap seaplane force anchored at Neva shoal....but not before the US carriers are revealed. Nagumo makes a fateful decision, to launch his full strike from the southern carrier force, but at 420nm it would remove 70 dive bombers to wait for his planes to form up, it will not be a cohesive strike.

7:55

Just as planes are leaving the Jap main striking force to the south and east of midway, a searchplane is spotted overhead. But it is too late to recall the fighters for CAP duty, the entire strike has been sent to attack the US Carrier force.

9:35

The Jap bombardment force, has snuck past the patrols, Midway is under fire, and the carriers Saratoga and Wasp are under attack, with planes on deck! Nimitz is obviously preparing to strike Nagumo's main force.

10:00+

Yorktown is also attacked, but its planes are up, taking a toll on the strike. At the worst possible time, Jap planes spot Hornet and Enterprise, bombs away! Wasp and Saratoga soon fall victim as well.

The toll, 21 planes downed, 29 damaged...but in return, 3 hits on Saratoga(presumed sunk), 1 on Hornet(burning), the CA Indianapolis also took a hit, but was still under control. Wasp and Enterprise both take 3 hits, and Yorktown takes 4, all three are presumed sunk by the Nagumo's pilots.

The Bombardment force however does not escape unscathed, by 14:45 the Mogami is sunk and all cruiser are damaged, with Suzuya on fire.

Near dusk a strike from the northern striking force reserve goes in. No American carriers are observed still afloat.

June 6

Dawn brings new sightings by the Northern force, now NNE of Midway, only 280nm from American battleships trying to flee.

Confident that the US carriers destroyed, Nagumo launches a full strike against midway from the SE, near Raita bank to relieve the pressure from the invasion force.

14:10

A full strike by the Northern force hits home, savaging the American cruisers and destroyers.

June 7

It's all over except the cleanup. The invasion force ships have taken a mauling, but Nagumo takes his carrier striking force in to support them with fighters from his carriers. And before the day is over, Midway is denuded of fighters, and Jap marines are supported by heavy air cover.

After The Battle

Intelligence for the IJN reports 20 US ships sunk.

9 CA – Pensacola, New Orleans, Vincennes, Minneapolis, Portland, San Fransisco, Salt Lake City, Chester, Augusta.

3 DD – Anderson, Clark, Plunkett

1 BB – South Dakota

2 AV – Thornton and Ballard

5 CV – Enterprise, Hornet, Yorktown, Saratoga, and Wasp

They also report 293 Naval Aircraft destroyed along with 111 land aircraft

The IJN has lost 11 ships

4 CA – Mogami, Mikuma, Cuzukya, Kumano

4 TR

1 DD – Hayashio

2 AV

Carrier casualties include 101 Naval Aircraft lost, most in that first disorganized strike that eliminated the US carriers.

For another 2 years, the IJN will reign supreme with air superiority over the Pacific until the Essex class carriers come on line. Nagumo, with Midway behind him, now sets his sights on Pearl, and nothing is going to stop him.

Or that's how it could have gone.



Carriers at War published by Matrix games, this naval simulation recreates the major naval battles of the Pacific theater of war, with plenty of variants and possibilities, it's enough to keep you well entertained. The above AAR was from a random Midway variant, giving the US a substantially larger carrier force than was historically present. Of course, it didn't do them that much good.

The look is very much old school, but pleasant, I'm reminded of a real time version of PTO, except on a more intimate scale. There's no production here, just your carriers and the enemy, and a whole lot of ships, bombs, and torpedoes with somebody's name on it.

The first principle of carrier warfare, is to get in the first strike, as hard as you can with as much as you can before they strike back. And that's apparent in this game, a lucky search plane can turn the tide of the battle, and don't think that all the battles come out as easy as this particular AAR. I actually played through twice, the first time forgetting to take screenshots(Doh!), the first time came out much closer, with an American carrier strike launched at my main carrier force at about the same time as I launched, leaving me with 4 of my 5 large carriers sunk, and further air operations reliant on my light carriers in the northern force.

This is a game where minutes count, and wisely they have a 5 minute count option, not to mention uninterrupted running for the long nights. So I have to say that the AI is adequate, make a mistake and let your carriers come too close without a CAP and expect to get slaughtered, because even a minor mistake that costs you a carrier can turn the battle. On the other hand, don't expect any dazzling tactics from the AI, it strikes hard, and strikes fast, but has a bit of tunnel vision, going after the enemy it can see instead of the enemy it knows should be out there.

Playability, well it's not a very steep learning curve in my opinion. The controls are very intuitive, left click to select, right to order a move, or else select an option from the dropdown menu. Your options are a bit limited by the scale, and that's good for the most part, since you don't have to worry about the minor details. In fact the best way to learn is to play through a game or two. Set your search rosettes, order about your task forces, and learn the value of cloud cover and a CAP(combat air patrol) the first time an enemy strike blasts your carriers out of the water. Or if you're lucky, you can deliberate over the difficult choice of striking as soon as you spot an enemy force, or waiting to get closer(at extended range your planes will have only a fraction of their maximum payload). To leave your planes below decks until the strike, or to arm them beforehand and leave thousands of tons of live ordnance up on your decks for an enemy strike to ignite. To send your fighters in armed with bombs or to have them fly escort. To take the time that you may not have and send them in as a cohesive strike, or let them fend for themselves, winging their way towards destruction as soon as they clear the decks? Once you send your strike off to that suspected enemy contact all you can do is hope and pray, as your brave little simulated pilots dive towards victory or death. Once there your pilots will select their own targets and report back(which can either be accurate or not depending on your options) on their suspected kills. But be warned, I've lost more than one game to an enemy carrier force that I thought sunk, so it's up to you to try and get your ships back under cover of a squall or storm while your planes rearm.

On the other hand, this abstraction and hands off approach does have a few downsides. Your surface fleet fights in much the same way, you tell your fleet elements to get closer or further away and select a main group of targets for their guns and that's it. You get a few seconds of explosions and that's it. This however, doesn't happen that often to begin with, so it might be forgiven, the only time I actually had a surface engagement was when my ships and the enemy's tried to use the same squall as cover during the night and more or less ran into each other. Other times one side or the other would usually see the odds and be able to retreat.

Also, your taskgroups are relatively fixed, you can dispatch a ship to retreat or scuttle it, but other than that you are unable to split or combine TG's. Something which is especially useful as Japan who tend to have all their carriers in a single large TG, making it very vulnerable, whereas until the late war the US nearly had a TG for every carrier, making it a bit slow to coordinate strikes. Of course, in my opinion this can be forgiven due to the creator's wish to avoid ahistorical hindsight tactics, but it still would have been a nice feature.

In addition, you'll eventually get tired of the same plane attacking random ship/plane shot down by CAP/AA, and ship showing damage(signified by a fire and estimation of its health) animations, and be ready to just see the results. So be warned that this isn't a showy game. Speaking of planes, I would have liked a little more detail on the search plane routes, the rosette is user friendly, but I wouldn't have minded being able to modify the standard search pattern or order additional planes out. And part of the abstraction is the need for your carriers to more or less stay in one place once planes are launched, I seem to recall the Japanese coordinating rendezvous points so that their carriers didn't have to remain stationary(correct me if I'm wrong however, since this is from half remembered history courses taken awhile back). So the ability to estimate and place a landing/retrieval point would have been nice.

Another thing that history doesn't exactly give us, is balance. There are playing one side or another will be decidedly easier depending on the scenario, shifting from Japan to the US respectively. Though the variants do a good job at providing alternate orders of battle(Playing as the US at Midway in the historical scenario for example or as Japan in the Philippine Sea scenarios, you realize how desperate the situation can be, outnumbered, outgunned and outpositioned, but not out of the fight). Fortunately, it ships with a very functional editor, and if you wish you could create scenarios to your heart's content.

The one thing I would have liked, is a way to tie the scenarios together in a campaign. Though I'm sure that'd be difficult given how ahistorical things can get if one side gets in a lucky strike. Imagine the US carriers wiped out at Pearl, the entire war would have changed, not just the order of battle for the next mission. So I can understand why it's presented the way it is, with the main battles(Though conspicuous in it's absence is Leyte Gulf, which is surprising, it would have been interesting to replay the harrowing trial of Taffy 3) and variant scenarios.

Now, the pricetag, at about $50 I found it a bit on the pricey side. For $50 you can get a new cutting edge, graphics out the wazoo, computer game, or an epic, down to the last faulty instrument panel on that plane sort of game, and this isn't an epic, battles usually take between half an hour to an hour if you play like I do, but it does what it needs to. Provide some real good edge of your seat tension, which is all too often missing from a strategic wargame. This feels like a beer and chips game, one that you don't have to devote a whole night playing, and it doesn't require a degree in logistics and a MENSA membership to enjoy the heck out of it.

The question however, is it worth the money when other independent games usually tend to run about twenty bucks less. Well, when I first started playing and realized the limits to my options I was almost ready to say no, but then I kept playing, and kept playing, and kept playing. I was hooked, an hour free here, an hour free there, in fact I was even dreaming about search rosettes and torpedo strikes for a few days! And now after a week or so of buying it, I'm convinced that I got my money's worth, because I know I'm going to keep on playing. I do feel that a more detail oriented grognard may be disappointed, but if you want a fun carrier game that doesn't take forever, then this is a good buy.

Chain Reaction 2.0

Over the New Years holiday I was finally able to get a victi....errr, I mean volunteer to play out a game using the Chain Reaction 2.0 rules from Two Hour Wargames. I've heard nothing but praise for them and really wanted to give them a try, plus of course the added bonus of them offering it for the best price imaginable, free!

I took the blue forces and my friend D, who may or may not enter in their own version of the story took the red forces. Both sides represented by board game pieces since, it was too much effort to dig around for anything more suitable at the moment.

We set up some makeshift terrain, the major features including a Church with a fence on the eastern side of the play area, a low wall along the north, cars and a store on the west, and a town's clock tower in the center.

In hindsight it probably would have been better to play one of the premade scenarios that they give out, instead of jumping right in, but that'll be something for next time. We both rolled up forces for our battle, the setting being rival gang warfare. One of the main lures of the Two Hour Wargame product line is, well, as advertised, all their games should be playable in 2 hours or less. Well we spent a good part of that time looking through the rules and rolling up weapons and characters(they had a nice table for rolling up your force, though for the gang army set under weapons it had "varies")
I winged it on the weapons, and we ended up with each side having a LMG, two Carbines, two Machine Pistols, Two regular pistols, and one BA Pistol(As well as 1 grenade each, though neither of us got a chance to use it). Again, probably should have started less ambitious than 8 characters per side, but that's how it went down. With my forces entering from the south and his from the north



I split my blue forces into two groups, initially I intended the western group under the 2nd in command to occupy the Tower and provide covering fire. Unfortunately I mistakenly put my pistol men with the LMG equipped 2nd in command. So they advanced up to the tower while my main force tried to flank the red forces by going around the east of the Church.

Advancing into position

The Red force had little actual movement, as even alone my LMG was successfully forcing most of them to hold their position at the low wall, although they did attempt to send their carbine equipped soldiers to occupy the Tower, they were repulsed, with one falling.(Where it would remain for the rest of the battle, out in the open field beyond hope of rescue). My own fortunes took a turn for the worse as a lucky shot by their leader took out my LMG man, which forces me to abort my flanking maneuver in favor of sending my own carbines up into the church.

The Opening Moves

The Red force attempts to take my strongpoint at the church, and is repulsed, some lucky shots by my carbine men keep their LMG equipped soldier from providing much support. They do however sneak a man forward to the cars, where a fierce exchange of pistol fire erupts, and gets nowhere fast(their low impact meant that at best there were a lot of grazing wounds).

Midgame

After Red's disastrous attempt at taking the church I returned the favor, charging at their downed men in the open. No mercy or quarter was given as the Blue forces sliced their throats. Unfortunately both sides got bogged down with the low wall separating them, this is where both leaders bit the dust as we tried out the melee rules. After that they were able to sneak a man into a church, and a brief firefight among the pews erupted, I emerged victorious, with D's man running away in a panic, but it was a pyrric victory. Their LMG leader was back up and my carbine man was having a hard time keeping them from coming forward. On the other hand, near the end I was able to revive my own LMG soldier.

Endgame

We decided to call it a draw, each with only three characters in play, and having lost a leader. All in all it took about 4 hours to get that far, though admittedly it took about an hour of set-up time.

Lessons Learned:
Height is power, in not pressing hard for the church, D had very limited movement options, if not for lucky rolls when I tried to force the wall, they'd have been in a world of hurt, I think it was a double six for my soak roll that left my leader lying in a puddle of blood before he could get the grenade off.
Moving in the open is bad. Both of our assaults stalled due to trying to force the issue moving through the open. And his poor soldier that got taken out in the second or third turn attempting to reach the tower was still lying there by the end of the game.
Don't Go it Alone. The activation system being such that those with a leader, or those with a high rep are more likely to move, splitting up is a bad idea. The western front was surprisingly quiet as turn after turn passed where neither side could move, and when they did a pistol battle would quickly have them ducking back to cover.

Thoughts:
Overall, it was a very fun game, though it had started dragging at the end. The rules were indeed easy to understand, although in practice it was a bit hard to recall everything that applied. Again, I think that if we had played one of the beginner scenarios things might have been better. Since it was free, I can't really give much complaint, though there could have been a table to roll for weapons. The other thing was that it was, well, rather hard to actually kill someone, perhaps it was simply due to the fact that we were using very low impact weapons, but about 80% of the time the character hit would be back on its feet the next turn, or else once someone tended their wounds. The duck back and "in sight" rules really made sure to punish our stupid decisions, some more so than others. It's definitely a game system that I'd like to revisit, even though it didn't live up to the advertising about being only 2 hours.