F:AT Thursday - Fields of Fire and Serpents of the Seas

"Sail Ho!" comes the cry from the heights of the main mast.

"What do you make of her?" bellows the Mate. He moves towards the rail. The spray of water from over the side feels good upon his face.

"She flies the Union Jack," comes the reply.

The mate nods grimly. If it is the ship they have been seeking, the British vessel that has been molesting American trade in this part of the Caribbean, it was apt to get hot.

He lays his hand upon the shoulder of near by ensign. "Give my regards to the Captain and ask him if he will join us on deck."

"Aye, sir" squeaks the boy as he scurries to obey the command.

Down below the captain sits with his elbows upon the table, chin resting upon one fist, brow furrowed in thought.  The captain's table is normally reserved for meals but today it is covered with a map and small sculptures of fighting men. He is just reaching to move one such token when the urgent rap is heard at the door.

"Come," he growls in mild annoyance at the interruption. 

The young ensign opens the door just enough to allow him to make eye contact with the captain, too bashful or intimidated to fully enter the room.

"Sir," he stammers, "the mate sends his compliments and asks if you would join him on deck."

"Out with it boy," he says not unkindly as he pushes himself back from the table and rises, adjusting his coat and grabbing his hat. "What has got Mr. Jacobs so agitated?"

"Sir, I believe they've spotted the Anaconda!"

"Indeed?" he smiles with excitement, "Very well. If you will excuse me, I must attend to my duties." This last is addressed to his guests who are seated at the table and have been quietly waiting for the captain to make his move.

They do not protest but give him heart felt wishes of good fortune. Even they, the True Believers, know that upon the high seas sometimes even board games must be given second priority. 

Moments after his departure the clanging of the bell and the stamping of rushing feet signal the call to action stations. Indeed it will be hot...

It is F:AT Thursday.

Thanks to the vagaries of the Gregorian calendar, this weeks normally scheduled F:AT Thursday fell upon Valentine's Day. In the interests of matrimonial harmony we decided it would be best if we spent the day with our spouses rather than drinking beer and rolling dice.

Don't get the wrong idea. My wife specifically told me that she had no problem with me going out to game... leaving her home... alone... on Valentine's Day... if that's what I REALLY wanted to do... I reiterate that is what she specifically said but I was not fooled. I know, and you know, if you have any experience in dealing with women at all, what the real message was. Punishment would have been swift.

So it wasn't until this past Saturday that I was able to get in some gaming with the monthly game group that meets in Newington at the head quarters of the Connecti-Con people. A small game shop and  meeting room in an office building. Matt, the guy that runs the place is a friendly enough fellow and his generosity in allowing us to hang out there is appreciated.

The thing with meet ups like this is that there is a wide variation in tastes and types of people. When I was first getting into the hobby this was less of an issue for me as I was so happy to play games that I would play anything with anybody and have a fairly good time about it. But now, as I've gotten older I find that I have less patience for certain things such as playing games I'm not that fond of (Castles of Burgundy for example) and for playing with people I'm not really fond  of either (the guy that needs the rules restated every turn for 20 turns for example). So over the last year or so my enthusiasm for "Game Day" has been waning somewhat.

But not completely and that is mostly due to several really stand up, grade A type people that I usually only see there. And it was a couple of them that I spent my day.

I ended up playing a three player scenario of "Serpents of the Seas" the sequel/expansion/variation of the classic Age of Sail combat game Flying Colors. I own Flying Colors but have never played it, like so many of my wargames. So it was good to try out the system itself.

It was pretty damn fun. The game comes with a deceptively large and weighty rule book but in practice it was really easy to play. Especially with somebody who has played and was familiar with it. Within about 10 minutes the basics were explained to me and we were into the excitement of Naval combat.

Jim played the French and I was his ally with a squadron of Italian ships (Venice?) attacking the dastardly British commanded by Commodore Kevin. The British weren't the masters of the sea for 200 years without reason and Kevin's ships were superior to ours but we had the numbers.

We descended upon his line from up wind and with cannons blazing. The French charged straight at them. Very courageously. Very boldly. Very stupidly as it turns out because they were just mauled by the Brits.

I maneuvered my Italian ships to break Kevin's line in two and hopefully cut a few weaker ships from the herd and thus force them into a position of being out of command, which in this game is really crippling.  I was just about to unleash my hail storm of iron death upon his trailing ships when one of the French vessels which had caught fire exploded as the conflagration reached the powder magazine.

The resulting shock and horror caused the French morale to shatter and they "broke contact". (The failure of a moral check at the end of the turn) Thus victory went to the British and shame and disgrace went to the French.

I wasn't too pleased about the random ending BUT it was fast and fun and I'd gladly play again. Kev assures me that playing a larger fleet action as is possible in Flying Colors with four or six or eight  people is even more fun and hopefully I'll get a chance to try that in the future.

...........................................

Fields of Fire is a solitaire game of infantry combat. The game comes with campaigns for World War 2, Korea, and Vietnam. It really is a game unlike any other I have ever played.

The first conflict you have to win in this game is the one you have to fight with the rules. This game is by no means easy to learn. At all. In any way. I have no doubt that this very difficulty has turned off many potential players and that is a damn shame because I think this game can be something really awesome. I say "can be" because after three attempted plays I'm still ironing out the rules.

There are a couple of things that help. The first is that the rules have been rewritten for the second edition, available as a download, specifically to attempt to make learning the game easier. I have not read them so I cannot comment one way or the other. Until about 2 hours ago I was convinced my copy was the 2nd edition. As it turns out, it's not.

Hey I never claimed I was smart.

The second thing and perhaps the one thing that has kept me going and made so much rule book gobelty-gook understandable is a series of videos by a dude calling himself "LancerDeuce" over on the Board Game Geek website. BGG is filled with a lot...A LOT...of worthless dreck and pointless blither blather but there are gems hidden in that mountain of information. His videos on this game are glittering jewels of usefulness.

LancerDeuce deserves a lot of cred for producing these videos. Especially because he first played the game on vassal, submitted it to people who also knew the game and could double check for errors and such, and then recreated it card pull for card pull and move for move for the videos.

Now the videos aren't a cake walk to get through either. They are long...they need to be. He talks in the dreaded "gravely all-knowing earnest" voice used by reporters on NPR and others who wish to convey a serious and informed tone. When I hear it my mind turns to thoughts of violence. But I sucked it up because...because they accomplish what they set out to do. Which is show you that in practice the game plays fairly easily. There are a lot of steps to follow, a lot of charts and a lot going on but it all makes sense.

And it was fun as hell! If you like narrative, it's got it. If you like deep strategy it's got it. If you like random shit storms, it's got that too. If you like games with perfect information and chess like control, well it hasn't got that.

I was assigned to clear a sector of Germans and occupy a small wood that was across the open ground of farms. I spent the first turn cautiously feeling out the area for resistance. At the end of the turn, my two forward squads reported back an all clear. No enemies in sight.

It was "quiet....almost too quiet". I decided that while the calm lasted I should advance the majority of my men. This, as it turns out, was just what the Germans were waiting for. They said "Guten Tag"  with a salvo of 155mm artillery fire followed up by a "Wie geht's? Wie steht's" in the form of some heavy machine gun fire and a little light MG fire for an "Auf Wiedersehen".

Four of my commanders became casualties in a matter of moments. My attack fell apart like wet toilette paper and the 9th Infantry had to flee the field with their tails between their legs. It was a catastrophic failure.

The court marshal is scheduled for later today and the firing squad is busy cleaning their weapons. It turns out that soldiers aren't particularly fond of the excuse "Hey I'm new!"