Two new games in a week...

Try as I might I am a sucker for something new and shiny, despite my best efforts I find my head being turned by two new games. 

I have always had a hankering for the cold war and modern games ever since reading Larry Bond's Red Phoenix back in the early 80's in which North Korea launches a lightning invasion of the South backed by heavy soviet support. 

I have tucked away in a box a reasonable North Korean and South Korean force that has not seen the light of day for over a decade waiting for rules that would give me the right feel for encounters in Korea.

I might just have found them with Great Escape Games latest offering. - Seven Days to the River Rhine. 

Designed to be a fast play set of rules which caters for company plus sized encounters, where one model represents one vehicle, Infantry are based on stands which contains small arms and a supporting AT weapons. Good because I can hardly see the things these days in 6mm.
However ATGW such as Milan's are separate.

The rules are well laid out with a nice touch providing you with QR codes to watch a video explaining the rules in more detail. You will need your own counters to mark your units, these also serve as your number of available orders who you issue to units over a turn and serve to flag who have activated.

The rule book covers a number of NATO and WARPAC army lists. But once again I have chosen less popular forces for the Korean peninsula, but the vehicle specs are pretty much covered across all the lists if you dig into the specifics - my older Korean stuff is largely T55's vs M48's.

In our run through we pitched a West German Mechanised Infantry formation vs the massed ranks of Soviet Armour. A fun affair giving a tense encounter as players whip out their laser pens looking for that dead ground, from the top down the playing area looks flat, but ask the German commander who deployed in a wood only to realise that the rise in front of him gave him no field of fire. 

A small hamlet in a valley awaits the rumble of soviet armour. The table can look quite bland in this scale but add some pylons and telegraph poles and suddenly the table comes alive. 

Recon units creep forwards through the pine trees, you need to make sure you get your kill shot in as the reaction fire can be deadly as my BRDM's and BMP's found out sitting on a hill top only to be thumped by West German Milan teams.

Rushing down into the village was no better especially as the wire guided AT weapons needed to be stationary to fire, definitely a one time only weapon. 

Meanwhile the Russian Armour rumbles on to the board, the platoon order gives me the ability to move 3 vehicles at once but you burn through your order chits pretty quick. 

The open valley proved to be step to far for both of us, whilst the German Infantry was slowly whittled down. The Russian Armour was picking up wounds and a steady steam of knock outs and we called it a draw.

But a good nights gaming and the encounter had the sort of feel that I was looking for with my Korean forces, looks like they my well see daylight in the weeks ahead.

If one new game was not enough mid week saw a run through of Battlestar Galactica Starship Battles by Ares Games the guys who brought you Wings of Glory. Being child of the 70's how could I resist. 

The detail on the ships is brilliant, if you look closely enough you can even see Starbucks name on the side of the cockpit, the first release is based on the reboot but their are plans for the original Cylon Raiders. 

Plotting of movement similar in style to the WW1 & 2 rules but with the ability to increase speed and height a lot quicker, good because you don't last long in a dog fight, two rounds of fire and the toasters are pretty much toast. 

The Vipers are nimble but the Raiders can take slightly more damage. If you are used to wide sweeping turns in WW1, be warned there the colonies can turn very tightly very often getting on the tail of the Cylon who had to take a wider arc.

The starter set includes 4 ships, Control Panels and movement decks for each together with pilot cards and bonuses as you become more experience, poor pilots being nuggets and more experienced pilots being experts aces. 

A really fun evening or was it just because I secured 4 kills :-)
Sorry gents I promised I would not brag.......