TY 6mm Lessons Learned 20

Another month, another game of teeny tiny tanks. I apologize to everyone for not posting up February's game, I failed to take any pictures for it, and it wasn't as exciting as many of our other games have been, so no big loss there. This month's game, however,  was fast paced, with many wild swings of emotions as RNGeezus had his way with the dice, but fun was had by all and we had a good long discussion at the end of the game, which I will try to recreate here. As you can see by the pictures below, I went a little crazy with the terrain and stuffed as many hills and tree plates onto the table as was possible (we are still working on getting a larger 6 foot by 4 foot gaming table that is also taller so we don't have to bend over quite so much) and much grumbling was heard as Cross Checks are the bane of all of us, even Uriah with his 2+ Cross Checking Chieftains. 

From one end...

...and the other

This month we had Uriah's British Chieftain Armoured Squadron take on Brandon's Soviet T-80 Shock Troop in a 75 point match. The Brits were pretty standard for Uriah - 8 Chieftains (two in the HQ, and two 3-tank Troops), a three Swingfire Troop, and a four Scorpion Recce Troop in the main Formation, and then from Divisional Support a three track Marksmen Battery, two Harriers, and two TOW Lynxes. Pretty standard fare, he went with Chieftains over Challengers to get another three tanks onto the table, not that he really needed them, but still had them available. On Brandon's side of things, he was pondering running Cubans from the new Red Dawn supplement, but I convinced him to try something outside of his comfort zone: high cost T-80 Shock Tank Company from the Soviets. If you look back into our history, both Brandon and I tend to run very low cost horde lists when we play WarPact, usually from the East Germans or Polish Warsaw Pact lists, and we both need practice running much more expensive, higher performance but lower Unit count lists. This was a list I'd been playing around with on the TY Forces Builder, and while the T-80s are fantastic vehicles, maybe a little too expensive to face off against Chieftains, and I should have suggested a T-64 Tank Battalion list I was also playing around with. Oh well, Brandon went with the T-80 Shock Company, which gave him five T-80s (1 HQ, and two 2-tank platoons), a 3 count of BMP-3 scouts, four Shilkas, and three Carnations in the company. From Divisional Support, he had a BMP OP, two Storms (with the wimpy AT-6 Spiral, these were chosen to spend 2 points and get something semi-useful), and two Mi-24 Hinds (with the better AT-9 Spiral-2... which didn't matter, more in a second). Neither of us have played around with the T-80 or T-64 Soviet lists, so this was a learning experience for both of us. For the mission, both players chose Attack, and then a one was rolled, resulting in Contact. To see who was Attacker and who was Defender, Brandon won the roll off, making the Soviets the Attackers. Both sides had Reserves, Uriah putting a Troop of three Chieftains, his Swingfires, and the Lynxes in Reserve, and Brandon put in his HQ, a company of T-80s, and the OP.

The Soviet Force.

The British Force.

Selections and the result is...

...Contact!

To decide Attacker.

British Reserves.

Soviet Reserves.

DEPLOYMENT - Contact, which we seem to have gotten a lot lately, is pretty basic. Both sides are roughly the same, with the Defender's Deployment zone being slightly larger. Each side places two Objectives inside the opposite side's Deployment zone, and they are live on Turn One, so you better not ignore the ones in your area to go haring after yours across the table. Attacker gets Immediate Reserves and gets to pick Daytime or roll on the chart (Brandon picked Daytime), and Defender gets Ambushers and Scattered Delayed Reserves. Uriah places his Objectives down, and pretty close to each other. Brandon places his Objectives with a decent separation between the two. I am of the opinion that spreading out the Objectives I place on your side of the table doesn't allow you, my opponent, to concentrate your Units in one area of the table, you've got to spread them out to cover everything. Uriah is of the opinion that putting your Objectives fairly close together means that he, the person attempting to take those Objectives, can focus his Units into just one area of the table when it comes time to attempt the Objectives. I think the real answer of whether you should space your Objectives or cluster them together, as many things do in this hobby, is "it depends". And as I am typing this, thinking I'm the second coming of Sun Tzu or von Clausewitz and just had a revelation, I realize that whether or not you push your Objectives together or spread them far apart, it all depends on how you make your opponent react to you. Uriah makes it work here (sorry, should I have yelled SPOILERS!!! before typing that? oh well, too late now) but both Brandon and I have, in the past, made him suffer for allowing us to use fewer defensive Units to cover the Objectives and use the rest in attacking the Objectives on his side of the table. But that goes back to us making him react instead of act. If you can get the initiative and keep the momentum going, do it.

Uriah's Deployment was really good for what he had, he covered both Objectives with one reactionary force (his Chieftain HQ and his Marksmen) and then one of this Chieftain Troops and his Cockroaches Scorpions bracketing the Objective to his left. Placing the Marksmen where he did, to cover practically the entire table (more on this in a moment), was very fortuitous for him. Brandon placed his Units next, more to the WarPact right/NATO left where Uriah's Objectives sat, also keeping his Shilkas in the middle of the table to cover the most ground - though now that I think of it, if none of your Units are on one end of the table, you can cheat your AA closer to the end of the table your Units are occupying, because if the Airedales show up on the end you can't reach, they are out of  range themselves so who cares? Unless they are heliborne troops and moving around to better attack you, and then you should pay attention, but in this particular game, Brandon and Uriah both could have moved their AA assets closer to the middle of their formations instead of middle of the table, and both had better coverage of their Units. Brandon does eventually bring something in further towards his left flank, but that is several Turns away.

There is a third of the table that nothing is happening on, not pictured.

The Brit command and AA overlooking the Objective to their right.

The Chieftains overlooking the Objective to their left.

Scorpions in the treeline, facing off against a lot of Soviets.

The Soviet right flank.

The Soviet "middle".

Soviet left flank.

TURN ONE - Our little Team Yankee group has made a couple of rule discoveries the past couple of games, and I am going to talk about them here before we really get started into the meat and potatoes of this Turn. The first one is the Movement Order Shoot 'n' Scoot - you can only attempt a Shoot 'n' Scoot if you did not Move before the Shooting phase. Didn't know that, thought you could do a Move, shoot, and then do a Shoot 'n' Scoot. The other isn't so much a rule as it is a Weapon Ability - Radar. In our last game between myself and Uriah, my East German Shilkas were not of much use, what with their paltry 20" range on their 23mm cannons. Uriah kept bringing in his strike aircraft just outside their range and shooting up my tanks. But what both of us missed is Radar, which adds 12 whole inches of range when you are shooting at aircraft! Unfortunately for Brandon, he had missed that as well, and I happened to mention it... after he had already placed his Hinds on the table in Deployment. Lessons Learned: Read! Read the rule book, read the cards for EVERYTHING, because if you're like us and have a lot of rules in your head from other games and previous editions of Battlefront games, you'll be missing out on some important info or misremembering how the game is supposed to be played.

The Soviets, having also been informed of the Weapon Ability their Shilkas also have, moved them closer to the end of the table to cover their Units better. The Hinds and the Recon BMP-3s move to engage the Scorpions to their immediate front, and the one Company of T-80s on the board attempt a Blitz, fail it, and sit where they are. The Storms and the Carnations, having to fire from stationary do not move. The BMP-3s rain some hell on the Scorpions, and then the Hinds prepare to fie, and both are shot out of the sky by the Marksmen because while we thought they were out of range in Deployment, after remembering Radar was a thing, they were very much in range. The Storms Bail one of the Chieftains they could see just poking out from behind a copse of trees across the table, and the T-80s shoot at the Chieftain HQ element, but nothing happens there. The Carnations self spot and Range In on the Scorpions, ending up, between the BMPs and the arty, one Destroyed and One Bailed. Also, even with Immediate Reserves, none came on this Turn.

I'm going to break to have another Lessons Learned discussion here, yes, about knowing what we knew at the end of the game we discussed doing all the way back here at the front of the game. With the intimate knowledge of the Radar Ability, on top of the small play area (remember, in our little group, because we are playing at 6mm scale, we have decided to halve all distances, except for weapon ranges), we discussed that maybe Brandon should have kept his Hinds in Reserve and juggled points around to bring out other Units, or even from the start, moved the Hinds to the complete opposite side of the board into one of the few parts of the board the Marksmen could not reach and see if Uriah could be tempted into moving the Marksmen away from covering the far side of the table. I would have gone with the former, and tried to bring out the OP and if at all possible another T-80, using said OP to get a Ranged In on the Marksmen to remove them with Artillery and then bring the Hinds in from Reserves. Another option that I have just thought of and have not discussed with my compatriots is we also halve the distance on all weapons, too. Yes, we are working on building a new table as I type this and I hope to have both the table and a DIY instruction post here on Truncheons & Flagons before we have our game in April, and that will help with the dominance of AA assets on helicopters and strike aircraft. Also, we purposefully kept weapon ranges as is, as modern weapon systems have so much range compared to what they can drive, it feels just that much more realistic playing it this way. The other part of this is we probably need to put in a game day where we do nothing but run through the rules one step at a time - were the Marksmen clear enough of the hill they were behind to shoot at the Hinds? we gave the Hinds a +1 Cover bonus because there were multiple stands of trees between them and the Marksmen, but was that not enough or too much? Until we think on it more, I believe I am going to be removing strike aircraft from my lists and use those points for other assets.

On the British side of the Turn, both Bailed vehicles Remounted (yay!), the Harriers get called in (woohoo!), but no rolls for Reserves until Turn Three (boo!). The Chieftain Troop under the watchful eye of the Storms moved into full cover behind a stand of trees... and that was it for movement. The Harriers and Scorpions fire at the BMPs to their immediate front, Destroying one and Bailing one. The Chieftain HQ element fires back at the T-80s, Destroying one. This Turn was really the beginning of RNGeezus not liking Brandon very much, as in his Shooting phase he made several hits that were not saved by Armor, but he rolled a one on Firepower. The Dice Gawds definitely did not favor Brandon on this day.

Shilkas moving up, and the Blitz token denotes a failed Blitz, in this case.

Hinds and BMPs moving up on the right, and not much else for the Soviets.

Burning Hinds and damaged Scorpions.

Storms manage to Shoot 'n' Scoot back into cover.

British HQ, AA, and Chieftain Troop.

Chieftains Remount and move up into cover.

Harriers come onto the table, and the Scorpion Remounts.

T-80s catching fire.

BMPs catching a lot of hate.

TURN TWO - The Soviets manage to Remount the Bailed BMP-3 from the Recon element, and also got a Company of T-80s onto the board from Reserves. Except for the T-80s moving up and the Shilkas continuing to move further to the extreme WarPact left (but also closer to the long table edge), no other movement was seen from the Soviets. Brandon brings the T-80s in on the left of center, threatening the Objective on that side of the table that has thus far not been remotely close to any action. The BMPs fire at the Scorpions and the Carnations repeat their bombardment, managing to Destroy one more Scorpion (I'm telling you, they're Cockroaches!). The Storms fire at the Marksmen from their new position and manage to Bail one. The T-80s that were already on the table fire at the Chieftain HQ once more... for yet another null result. 

The Brits once again manage to bring on the Harriers (who are in an even smaller slice of the table that the Shilkas can't quite reach, even with Radar) but fail to Remount their one Bailed Marksman. The Chieftain Troop that was protecting the Objective on NATO left now Dash to cover the other Objective, reacting to the newly arrived T-80s. In Shooting, they wipe out the remaining BMP-3s, catching fire from the Harriers and Scorpions again, as well as the T-80 Company that had suffered a casualty last Turn.

T-80s on and moving, and Shilkas moving in the background.

Shilkas moving.

Remounted BMP-3.

Bailed Marksman.

Burning Scorpions.

Here come the Harriers... again.

Chieftains Dash to watch over the other Objective.

Burning T-80s.

Burning BMP-3s.

TURN THREE - The Soviets get in the last of their Reserves, the lone T-80 HQ track and the BMP OP (we have been having a discussion in the group of replacing the BMP OP with something else, as all they have is an MG and no cannon or missile like the BMP-1 that Battlefront uses as both the model and picture in the book; however, in reality, the BMP OP should be a PRP-3 "Val" which is based on the BMP-1, but just a different turret, unlike what is provided from BF; still not decided if I want to make up an OP with a UAZ-469 or just cut a cannon off the turret front on one of the MANY BMP-1 minis I have and call it a day) which the T-80 immediately tucks into cover behind the burning T-80s in the middle of the Soviet line, and the OP tucks in behind the Objective behind the T-80s. I discussed this with Brandon and think he could have used his OP as a distraction, coming onto the table on one extreme or the other, and Dashing forward to make Uriah react to its presence and maybe sneak in for a Capture on an Objective. Brandon did admit that he should have done something with the OP, even getting it into a spotting position so he could Range In on a Unit across the table. The T-80 Company that had arrived last Turn moved up to put some rounds onto the Marksmen and Chieftain HQ in the rear of the British Formation, and the Storms Blitzed and lined up to do the same from the other side of the fight. RNGeezus continued to show Brandon disfavor and nothing resulted from the five vehicles (T-80 HQ and Company, and the Storms) firing on the Brits.

In the British half, Delayed Reserves finally arrive (yay!), but none arrive on the table (boo!). The Marksmen fail to Remount, again, and the rest finally move away from their starting positions, as there were no more aircraft forthcoming so they might as well be doing something (Lessons Learned - once all your enemy's aircraft are down, all of your AA assets are better off doing SOMETHING: gun AA can go after infantry and lightly armored vehicles, and even missile AA Units can either attempt to Capture Objectives, or move close to your own to deny your opponent an easy Capture, though if you are using Victory Points, try not to "feed" your opponent too much). The Chieftains that had moved to cover the Objective on the NATO right side of the table continued to maneuver to deal with the encroaching T-80 threat from that side of the table. The Scorpions also attempted to leave the woods they had been in from the start, one successfully making their Cross Check, and the other Bogging. Not a lot of Shooting going on this Turn for the Brits, as most of the moves were Dashes of some flavor, more preparation to get to grips with the Soviets in the following Turns.

Turn Three, let's get it on!

T-80s maneuvering to fire on the Units at the rear.

T-80 HQ and BMP OP (represented by the BTR to differentiate it) arrive from Reserves.

Storms Blitz to get Line of Sight onto the Brits.

Chieftains moving to deal with the T-80s.

Marksmen and Scorpions on the move.

Scorpion Bogged in the trees.

TURN FOUR - The Soviets shifted slightly, the Shilkas coming off the back edge of the table to either engage ground targets or try and catch the Harriers if they return, or Lynx helos if they show up from Reserves this Turn. The OP moves up a little bit as well, but not very far, just to keep it out of the line of fire that the T-80 HQ is receiving from the Chieftain HQ element across the table. Again, more ineffective Soviet Shooting occurs, resulting in just one Marksmen Bailed. Damn you, RNGeezus!!

On the British side of the Turn, you can definitely start to feel the momentum is in the Brits' favor. No Reserves again, but everything Bailed Remounts, and the Bogged Scorpion passes their Cross Check this time to join up with the other Scorpion that has boogied out onto the table. The Chieftains move into the trees far enough to get shots (with Cover) on the T-80s threatening the NATO right flank. The Marksmen all gather up and pour fire into the Storms, wiping that Unit from the table. The Scorpions fire at the Carnations and Destroy one as well. The Chieftains in the trees fire on the T-80s, Destroying one and Bailing the other, putting the Soviet Unit perilously close to leaving the table.

Turn Four, FIGHT!!

Shilkas and BMP OP moving up.

Storms Bail a Marksman.

Scorpions rejoined.

Chieftains moving to the attack.

Marksmen Remounted and joined back up.

Burning Carnation.

Burning Storms.

Burni... I'm sensing a theme here.

TURN FIVE - The Soviets continue their unlucky streak, as the Bailed T-80 Remounts, just to fail Morale and leave the table. This leaves the HQ element, the Shilkas, and the two remaining Carnations from the core Shock Tank Formation, and the OP from Divisional Support, so no Formation Morale checks yet. The Shilkas and Carnations both move up to fire on the Scorpions, while the HQ and the OP stay where they are at. The Scorpions are FINALLY taken out in firing, and the HQ T-80 manages to Destroy one of the Marksmen.

The British FINALLY get some Reserves on the table, but still only one Unit rolling three dice. The final Troop of Chieftains comes on, Scattered die says "middle of the table", and they enter onto the table just beside the Objective on the NATO left flank. They immediately move forward to get into a blocking position and cover the lanes of approach leading to that Objective. As the Shilkas fired at the Scorpions, the Brits roll for Harriers and get them onto the table as well. The Chieftains who had just successfully removed a Company of T-80s attempts to cross the trees they are in, and two of the three tracks immediately Bog. I don't know what it is with our small group and Cross Checks, but they are everyone's bane. Remember, Chieftains have a 2+ Cross Check, and still two out of three failed it. The Marksmen also move up to add their fire (well, from at least one of the tracks if not both) at the Shilkas. The Harriers and Marksmen wipe out the Shilkas (Marksmen killed one and Bailed two, and the Harriers finished the job killing three).

Turn Five, let's go!

Last T-80 of that Company headed for the hills.

Shilkas moving up.

Carnations moving up.

Burning Scorpions.

Another shot across the table.

Burning Marksman.

Chieftains (not) on the move.

Marksmen, newly arrived Chieftains, and the Harriers.

Better shot of the Chieftains.

Chieftain HQ: "no, we're good right where we're at, thank you."

Burning Shilkas.

Spoilers! This is the End!

DENOUEMENT - With only the T-80 HQ element, two out of three remaining Carnations, and an OP track, Brandon decided it was the better part of valor to concede the game at this point. I don't really blame him - he was down to two core Units, and only four vehicles total on the field, while Uriah still had two Units in Reserve (Swingfires and Lynxes) that were definitely going to arrive this Turn. We had a lively discussion about possible solutions. If I had been playing the Soviets, with the two Objectives that close together, I would have immediately charged across the table to attack the Objective on that side and ignored the other half of the table completely... but that may still not have worked, I am not the second coming of Rommel, after all. Brandon and Uriah both thought that Brandon could have helped himself better by mixing up what Units were in Reserve - definitely leave the Hinds and bring the OP in, try to use arty to kill the Marksmen before the Hinds come in from Reserves; try to get in the HQ element as well, but other than the Storms, there's not much else that you don't desperately need (Shilkas to kill planes, Carnations to kill Marksmen) to balance out the cost, though maybe the Recon Platoon if you're not going to use their Spearhead to really jump out across the board in Deployment like I suggested.

On the other side of the equation, the British Harrier is an excellent strike aircraft (3+ to arrive on table instead of 4+ for everyone else), but it is VERY short ranged in its weapon selection. If your opponent has remembered to read the back of their Unit cards and has a good grasp of how effective their AA assets truly are, Harriers are going to spend a lot of time loitering off table or at the edges until you get said AA assets off the table, or entice them to shoot at something else so they can't fire at the Harriers. I think Uriah played this very well, he started very defensively, but flipped it to aggressive when it became apparent that was what was needed. And going with Chieftains against WarPact, even technically superior T-80s, was the right move. Challengers could have driven forward and shrugged off cannon fire more easily, but in this case, the Chieftains had enough armor (and Brandon enough bad luck) that Uriah didn't lose a single tank. The game-long run of bad luck Brandon suffered through (I have never seen so many ones come up for Firepower 2+ weapons) also did not help, but I think Uriah worked his Cover and when he engaged with the Chieftains, he did so from a superior firing position. Again, if you are playing British, bring Scorpions/Scimitars in every list, it took FIVE TURNS to kill four Scorpions this game. They are resilient, to say the least. 

I really should have suggested the T-64 Battalion list I've been playing around with instead of the T-80 Shock Company - 9 tanks instead of 5, plus a BMP-1 Motor Rifle Company (4 tracks, 3 RPG-7 stands, and 4 rifle teams), an extra track in the Recon element (and swapped to BMP-1s), and four Su-17 Fitters (with the Kh-25 missiles) instead of Hinds. In Contact, with 40% of the force in Reserve, I would put one of the tank Companies and the Fitters into Reserve (unless the rules state that strike aircraft can't be in Reserve, I misremember right now and don't have my rule book to hand, and it would depend on if I was playing Attacker and getting Immediate Reserves or Defender with Scattered Delayed what I would put out in the Fitters' place). This let's me use the arty to soften up the AA assets and the infantry to sit on the Objective (or both if they're close like Uriah prefers to place them) and practically everything else to use the Recon's Spearhead to get as far across the board as possible to assault one of the Objectives as early as possible. Yes, I'm still convinced this is the way to go, put your opponent on the back foot and don't let up until the game is over. Or you could hunker in for a good defend, get your infantry out and Dug In doing overwatch on one of the Objectives (BMPs also in cover supporting) with the tanks on the other, from out of the nearest chunk of Cover and let your opponent come into the killzone. 

There you have it, a bunch of pretty pictures, the wild meandering thoughts of a mad man, which I hope you garnished some insight from. Hope everyone is doing okay, and I hope you get to play some games with your friends very soon. See you all next month!

Team Yankee Red Dawn National Guard Follow Up

Since last we left our intrepid hero... After my last post about what I would do for a National Guard list using Battlefront's new Red Dawn book for their tabletop wargame, World War III, Team Yankee (or TY for the rest of this article), I have been busy finishing my own build of the NG list, I have gotten my copy of the book and Unit cards, and I have made some revelations along the way. Hence why I'm wasting even more electrons blathering on about this when no one but me really cares in the first place. I never claimed to be anything but stubborn.

One of the biggest things that really got me in the way that Battlefront (or BF for short) dismissively didn't provide any NG list for Red Dawn, besides just letting you have anything you wanted from the American book, including Marines, was that they could have given a pared down list that more reflected the older technology found in the NG forces. And yes, it is very much a thing, I can't begin to tell you how much old, worn out and out of date the equipment I used in my time in the NG. Now, that is not 100% true for all NG units everywhere, but let's think about the situation surrounding the TY timeline and Red Dawn book - World War 3 has been kicked off by the Soviets invading Eastern Europe in 1985. NATO is trying to stop them, and America has begun shipping over all of their Active Duty and Reserve Army and Air Force units (that aren't being held up in other countries like South Korea and Japan) to the point they're also calling in favors from the National Guard to get more troops and equipment to mainland Europe to stop the Red Wave. So when the Soviet VDV and Cubans invade the continental United States, what do you think is left? That's right, not only National Guard troops, but the ones with the oldest, jankiest equipment to be had.

Oh, and Canadians, they'll also be facing Canadians. The map shows the VDV hitting a little bit of Alaska, riding through a large chunk of British Columbia, Alberta, and Saskatchewan territories before sliding into Montana, I'm sure the Canadians are not letting that one go down without a fight, and neither are the Soviets not getting a little of their own back for Canada's support of NATO in the European theater. However, I am not as familiar with Canada's armed forces, and we haven't gotten much beyond the old Free Nations supplement (which the update to that book was announced to be released in later 2023, September or so, in the Battlefront holiday video) so I'm not willing to take a crack at that list beyond pointing folks towards Free Nations and saying "have at it".

For me, you can choose to go one of three ways with your National Guard choices - numero uno is what BF put in Red Dawn, everything in the American book goes, have fun; numero dos is really what I kind of expected BF to do in Red Dawn, and that is use the US Army lists from the American book, but restrict it to a few units (I'll provide that here momentarily); and lo ultimo is what the rest of this article, the thousands of words you see below, is about, rewriting the US Army lists, adding in old vehicles that were still in NG usage, and adjusting stats of units. The first option is easy, if you have the American and Red Dawn books you're good to go, have fun with your friends. The second option is pretty easy, basically a few restrictions on allowable equipment and Formations you can choose from. This is all optional, do what you want, but if you want a little more realism, a little more difficulty facing down the Soviets and Cubans, here is what I recommend. First, no TOW-2s, only the original TOW missiles. Formations - I suggest skipping the M1 Abrams Armored Combat Team entirely, but if you do pick it, stick with the M113 Scout Sections and M113 Mech Platoon (Bradleys are way too new); M60 Patton Armored Combat Team is good to go; M113 Mech Combat Team is good, but skip the Abrams and Bradley options; UH-1 Huey Infantry Combat Team is good to go; I don't like letting the NG have the RDF/LT (they never existed in real life) but this is your game, so I'm not totally heartbroken saying if you want to do the Heavy Combined Arms Company, go for it; on the other hand, I see no issues in anyone using the Light Combined Arms Company or the Light Attack Company (or multiple ones, these are cheap Formations); the M113 Armored Cavalry Troop also good to go, but again, encouraging you to skip the Abrams and the Apaches; HMMWV Cavalry Troop no changes; and from Divisional Support I'd say skip the MLRS, the SGT York, and the Apaches. If you also wanted to do a Marine force, those poor bastards get hand me downs in their front line units (because they belong to the Navy and the Army outnumbers them by such a large margin) that you can go crazy there, the Marines do have Reserve units scattered across the United States, not just near the coasts were their bases are at.

The third and final option, at least that you'll get from me and the point of all this rambling and throwing words about, is the last gasp of the US Army National Guard, the absolute bottom of the barrel responding to the invasion of CONUS (Continental United States), something that has rarely happened and not since the turn of the 20th Century. All the front-line National Guard troops and equipment are on their way to Europe to fight against the Soviets, the Middle East to help the Israelis and Iraqis, and to Korea to help the South throw the North back across the DMZ (yes, I think either Battlefront will make a Korean book specifically for TY, or they'll hire it out to Osprey like they did for Fate of a Nation, or I'll finish this project and start writing it up myself), so when the Soviet air assault VDV and the Cubans invade, all that is left is the dribs and drabs. The various National Guard Adjutant Generals panic called all of their command structures and threw everything they had left on the roads to head north or south, east or west, whichever direction they needed to get into the fight and throw back the invaders. As such, in addition to digging up some old equipment, I've downgraded almost all abilities, which does make everything cheaper. Unfortunately, I'm restricting myself (you can do what you want, but I'm going this route) to just one each of the different Units - none of this four Formations of M60 Patton Armored Combat Teams, no no no, just one. Just one M113 Mech Infantry Combat Team. And so on, so the individual Formations are cheaper, but you're (okay, I'm) going to have to use multiple Formations to meet whatever points total you and your opponent have agreed on. This restriction is to represent the hodge podge nature of this force the NG has scraped from the bottom of the barrel to throw at the bad guys invading America.

I have had numerous revelations while I have been creating my NG list. Many of the decisions I made in my previous post, after either looking deeper into the official lists, comparing hard numbers while translating statistics and points from other books, hearing other players opinions and real world experiences, and even trying to find appropriate miniatures for these changes (okay, I confess, I only looked for 6mm scale miniatures, so while I can't guarantee that you can play my NG list in 15mm scale, generally there are more options in 15mm, so you should be fine), got changed, dropped, or shifted slightly. I think my biggest mistake was trying to take the M40 106mm recoilless rifle as a man-portable crew served weapon. Yes, they were generally set on their own special tripod and meant to be dragged away from their current firing point by hand, but they got to that firing point towed by at least a M151 Mutt. I could have probably rejiggered the M113 Mech Infantry to have Mutts in them for towing, but it would have never fit in with the Huey air assault infantry. Plus, couldn't find a good mini - yes, I'd said previously that GHQ had a recoilless rifle in their Soviet infantry pack, but it's way too small to represent the M40, which is a sizeable piece of hardware - and while I do have Jeep-mounted options that will work, again, could not fit those into the Huey troops. Still, I wanted to show how low on available first rate technology the NG is in the Red Dawn scenario, and while I still allowed the various infantry elements to add one M47 Dargon missile team for an extra point, and replaced a transport M113 with a M40-equipped M113 (they still have plenty of Passenger spaces in the remaining M113s), I replaced all the other Dragon teams with M67 90mm recoilless rifle teams, the stats of which I got from the 'Nam force builder. Plus, since the M67 is basically a slightly larger Bazooka, I am going to use that Soviet recoilless rifle-toting infantry mini after all.

I still think that if there are any M60A3 Pattons in the front lines in Europe, that is because the US Army doesn't have a single M1 Abrams left in the United States. However, if you wanted to allow the M1 Abrams (not the M1A1, I still think that one should be off limits for the Red Dawn scenarios, but again, this is just my opinion, you play your game how you want) where it is an option next to the M60 Patton, then you're probably not straying too far away from reality. Okay, "reality", as this is a game about an alternate history that never happened for us, being represented as a game that has to be fair and balanced for both sides. News flash - militaries aren't interested in "fair fights", those are for suckers.

I know why they don't do it, but I do wish BF would have built the game around off-board artillery. Yes, it's because they wouldn't sell as many minis (understandable, they have to make money, after all), and some dice rolling on the side to determine the facts of an artillery counter-battery duel would not be as exciting as seeing it play out on table, still I wish they had gone that way so I could expand the NG arty options to towed pieces. And yes, there are stats for towed pieces I could steal from 'Nam and Fate of a Nation (FoaN), but no towing vehicles or movement rules in the current TY/v4 ruleset. Why would anyone want to move 155mm towed artillery pieces mid-battle? I've worked with artillery troops before, and let me tell you, those knuckle-dragging, tube-licking, gun bunnies wouldn't pause before pushing their cannons onto line to commence pouring some direct fire at incoming armor or infantry. Well, while I could use my stats I generated for the M35A2s, I don't feel like digging out my v3 books and trying to translate all the hitching up and moving rules. Besides, instead of the West German M109G stats, I found the Canadians in Free Nations already using the original M126 bearing M109, so I just stole that whole cloth and made it the only option (besides the M106, which I never considered changing, they were fine as is). The other artillery wish I have for my NG list is that somewhere in an official BF product they had used the American M110A2 203mm self-propelled artillery piece. Not only is it screamingly old school and GHQ has an excellent 6mm mini of them, but they were in use by the NG up until the mid-1990s.

The other big lesson I'm starting to realize as I type this and read more in Red Dawn is that I am right in restricting the technology and even bringing in some older equipment, but I was not right in insisting on keeping the same abilities (Courage, Morale, etc) as before. Yes the majority of NG troops, both combat and support, are just as good as our Active Duty brethren (though they'll deny, deny, deny) as much of the NG are made up of former Active servicemembers who are constantly passing on their knowledge and experiences to the rest of the force. Plus, all NG have to meet the same standards as the Active Duty folks, and maintaining those same skills and level of performance while managing a civilian career and family on top of it. Being NG is harder than you think, trust me, why I always point young folks interested in joining the Army fresh out of high school to go Active Duty first and come to the NG after they've had some NCOs babysit them for at least one enlisted contract (usually 4 years). But wait, earlier you said you were wrong, what's up with the conflict between the "I'm wrong" statement and "the NG are Gods Among Humanity"? So, yes, your average NG troops are just as good as your average Active Duty line troops... but those are the ones that have been sent to or preparing to jump off to Europe to join in the fun, not the troops left behind who now have to deal with the VDV and the Cubans. While I've been getting to the end of creating my NG list (I'm to Divisional Support right now) I realized the above, and am also cross checking ability scores and points between East German and Czech forces from the recent Warsaw Pact release. I don't remember if I touched on this in a previous BatRep (and am too lazy busy to go back and find it if I did), but the WarPact supporting countries - Poland, East German, Czechoslovakia - run, in that order, from most expensive to least expensive points-wise, and the only real differences they have, besides some equipment uniqueness, is ability scores. So comparing apples to apples, your standard T-72M tank company, in both the East German and Czech lists, have the exact same stats, but the Czech ability scores are all one worse than the East German scores (except Assault, exactly the same) and cost one point less at three tanks, two points less at four, and three at five. The M60 Pattons have similar stats to the T72Ms and the M48A5s have similar stats to T62, and now with the new, lower abilities, I'm going as simple as possible - 3 points per M60, 2 points per M48A5. And to make sure I'm not being too overpowered, in addition to lowering every ability (except Assault) by one, I'm also lowering the Hit On from 4+ to 3+ (again, 2nd line and older troops that were left behind while the 1st line folks are at the Ports of Embarkation getting ready to deploy to the European theater and Korean peninsula... sorry my brain is all over the place, I've long thought that BF could release a Korean book that, much like Oil Wars, covers the North and South Korean forces during the TY timeline, because you know if the Soviets come through the Fulda Gap, the North Koreans are going to decide the Americans are distracted enough to cross the DMZ.. and BF can also do a Korean war section, and if they ever do the promised Checkpoint Charlie book, they can set up the Korean forces for that portion of the timeline) to justify the drop in points.

Okay, that was a lot of words, I'm going to try and avoid being so wordy from here on out (HA!!). Have I mentioned that I also changed all of the Thermal Imaging to Infra-Red? Again, a downgrade to equipment to reflect the older gear the National Guard is using. In addition, I'm working up stats to include some old school equipment that isn't to be found anywhere else in TY, 'Nam or Fate of a Nation, like the aforementioned M110A2, and A7 Corsair II. I'm doing so many points adjustments and everything else, I might as well try my hand at creating some pieces I want to play with whole cloth, but honestly, I think those 2 are plenty and I am unable to find any other pieces that are just too cool not to include. Starting with the M110A2, I go first to the source of all recorded knowledge, Wikipedia. An interesting thing about this artillery piece is that it has 13 crew - 1 driver, 2 gunners, 2 loaders, and then 8 assistants that usually ride around in an M548, which is a little tracked cargo hauler that the M110A2 batteries used as ammo haulers. I think for self-defense purposes, I am going to include 2 stands of rifleman infantry and the M548 (with mounted M2 machinegun) with each M110A2. Another interesting fact is that, due to the large nature of the caliber of these guns, they are screamingly slow to fire, but due to the nature of how the Special Rules work in TY, I don't want to just use Slow Firing, which degrades the accuracy whenever the vehicle moves and fires, instead I need to paw through the books and see if I can find a special rule where these guns can only fire every other Turn. I also found the Army operator's manual, amazing what you can find on the internet, and wow, these were one of the artillery pieces the US Army was trying to fire nuclear weapons out of, so these had ranges in excess of 15 miles. No, I am not trying to stat up a nuclear round for this one, the standard HE rounds will be quite devastating enough, thank you very much. I am going to give the gun enough range, it doesn't matter how big of a table you're on, you can reach all the way across it. Speaking of, with the bursting radius of these 8-inch rounds being what they were, the temptation is to make the Artillery bombardment into a Salvo bombardment, but that isn't the way to go. Instead, make both the Artillery template bombardment and the direct fire Brutal, as well as another couple of Special Rules I'm making up based on other rules I've seen in TY and other BF products - because the shell is so much bigger than the 155mm in the M109, that the battery will ignore the "re-roll successful rolls To Hit if only firing with 1 or 2 weapons" and then, due to how long it takes to load and fire, if the battery moved or fired last round, it cannot fire this round. That last one I am serious about, the very best crews could only get about four rounds off a minute, and most crews were having a good day if they were averaging two to three rounds a minute, sustained. I'm still not 100% on what all the stats will be for these beasts (the rifleman teams? easy, take your standard team and remove the M72 LAW; and the M548 is an unarmored version of the M113 with an M2 .50cal, too easy), but I'm trying to balance reality with game mechanics and will try to figure points cost after I get the stats nailed down.

After much fiddling with stats and points, I think I am where I want to be, or at least a lot closer. I have gone back and, in addition to not including the Apache into my list, I added as an option a Huey Slick, the UH-1B/C attack variant with 7.62 mini guns and 2.75" rocket pods. I had remembered these had been used by the Army for many years (yes, Army, they have the helos, and the Air Force gets the fixed wing craft, with some small exceptions both ways) during and after Vietnam. I also settled on just two planes for the attack aircraft options, the A4 Skyhawk, since I had its stats from 'Nam, and the A7 Corsair II, whose stats I had to make up. Why not the A1 Skyraider as well? Been out of service too long, and really, two plane options is enough, didn't need old-older-oldest as options. After some discussions with folks in the various online forums, I pulled back the infantry teams for the M110A2s and also the "if you fired or moved last round you cannot fire this round" restriction, both were just too messy to deal with on the table. KISS - keep it simple, stupid. This is just a game, a gamification of what could have happened, and yes, very much a fun game, but it is just a game and not reality. I did up their Assault and Counterattack stats just a smidge to reflect having that many troops on hand, but other than that, the rest were too much. I did leave the M548 ammo haulers with the M110A2s because a) they are cool looking, b) would have been there, and c) gave me an excuse to keep at least one .50cal MG per arty track close by for either AA duty or to help shoot up an incoming Assault. I also doubled every Divisional Support option - instead of being able to bring just one FIST, now you can bring two, if you have the points for it, and so on - as I had lowered so many points across the whole list that it just made sense to offer more Units from Support if that is what you want.

There you have it, my stab at a Us Army and Air National Guard list to be used in Red Dawn type scenarios for Team Yankee. If you want to download the list itself and see the huge sprawling document, you can check it out here. No, i am not trying to give away something BF currently offers in their catalog, practically everything about this list has been changed from the original. If BF ever does release a US NG list that looks vaguely like mine, I will take this one down. We have become too litigious of a society, and I just don't care to be "the name" behind this list, I just want this list to exist out there so we can play it. Besides, I have done roughly zero playtesting on these points and stats, I could be close, I could be wildly high or low, or I could be perfect. I doubt I'm perfect, and while I hope I'm at least close, I know with a lot of trial and error I could get closer to perfection. Which means there is a lot of playtesting in my future, oh darn the luck! An excuse to play more games. Battlefront folks, if you find this and are intrigued, please drop me a line, I'll be glad to share everything I have with you, as I am greatly enjoying your game and just want to see more options and the hobby growing. As for the rest of you, please get out there and play more games, any games, with your friends and family. 

Games I Have Purchased, But Won't Ever Get to Play

Wow, that's a real downer of a title isn't it? But admit it, if you have been in the role-playing game hobby (or even any other type of game, be it board, card, war, or video) long enough, you too have a game, or a shelf full of games, or even a storage locker worth of games, that you were excited enough to buy (whether new or from the discount bin at your FLGS), or back on Kickstarter, or were gifted from a friend or family member, and while you are excited to have that game, and you have pored over its manual in loving detail, you will never, EVER get anyone else to play it with you. Pour one out for our fallen brethren, never played, relegated forever to sit and collect dust. Here are some of the games in my collection that I have paid good money for, but have resigned myself to the realization that I will never get to play them.

Planet Mercenary Role-Playing Game - based on the popular, long-running webcomic, Schlock Mercenary, Planet Mercenary (PM from here on out) is about running a mercenaries for hire corporation in a far future (31st century, per the human calendar), hard sci-fi universe. Do you want to play strange alien races or just plain humans, using high tech weapons and gadgets to kill strange alien races or just plain humans, and getting paid huge sums of money to do so? Well, everything but that last one can be found in PM, as CHAOS is the theme of this tabletop RPG, and you will find yourself failing more often than you are succeeding, but that frequent failure is built into the rules (and if you're familiar with the comic at all, the lore of the game universe), to the point where you will in combat often find yourself deciding on whether or not to invoke the Ablative Meatshield rule and kill a lower ranked NPC party member rather than lose your own PC... or decide not to, and start updating said lower ranked NPC to become your next PC as your current PC dies a gruesome death. And the accessories for this game! There are tokens (like bennies in Savage Worlds), a Mayhem deck and Mayhem dice, and a Game Chief screen made to look like a handbrain (think tablet computer) from the Schlock Mercenary universe, you really have to see the whole panoply in person to appreciate the attention to detail the creators paid to this game bringing it to life. And this is not a thin pamphlet like some of the Osprey games you see them selling, this is a serious, 352 page, nicely printed, hardbound book (if you get the physical copy, that is, they do offer it in digits as well), because the authors did not expect you to have read Schlock Mercenary to play the game, so they included as much backstory and setting information as they could cram into the book. No offense to Osprey, they make some very entertaining games (one of them is farther down this list), but their more popular ones tend to come in very thin, softbound books. 

What is the likelihood of me getting my friends to play PM? Not very high, and that's even with me acknowledging that I, out of my group of friends, am probably the only one who has read Schlock Mercenary for any length of time (I read the comic almost from the start some 20 years ago) and I would have to be the one to run the game. I had to struggle to get enough folks interested in my Cyberpunk Red game to get it going and now will not be starting up a Savage Worlds game this year like I hoped I would (that free time and those players I had gathered to this point got grabbed by one of said players for a D&D 5e game we are starting up), so convincing either my Eberron group or my CPRed group to take a month off from either of those games, or even hold an extra session mid-month to play some PM, is pretty slim. I am going to keep trying, though, as I feel my CPRed group would be up for trying out something different.

Redshirts and Redshirts 2 Card Games - way back in the early days of the internet (late '90s, early '00s) a young gentleman in the United States Army began posting the things he was not allowed to do in said Army, things like answering questions on forms in hilarious ways (The Wages of Sin are not heaps and heaps of slightly smelly cash) or doing things in humorous ways in the operation of normal Army business (May not chew gum in formation unless I brought enough for everybody; The next day, may still not chew gum in formation even if I did bring enough for everybody). Eventually, the list grew to encompass 213 such "things" and he made a list, and named it after his nickname - The Skippy List. Yes, that is a link from the Internet Wayback Machine, because the site has been down the last couple of years and had not been updated since 2015. Sometime after leaving the Army and graduating from the SMU Guildhall program (game design is what they teach), Skippy made his first game, Redshirts (RS from here on out). If you are any type of geek, you immediately thought of Star Trek, and you'd be right (we'd also accept the book of the same name from John Scalzi, and while both got released at the same time, other than the gigantic coincidence, there is no ties between the two), this game is a parody of the original Star Trek always sending down a nobody in a red shirt and then killing them off. I know, you see the humor in it, too, right? And Skippy and the team at WeaselPants (I know, another archive from the Internet Wayback Machine, but what can you do?) even got David Riddick, creator and artist of the Legend of Bill webcomic, who draws humor scenes very well, to do all the art of the cards.

So what happened? This sounds like a slam dunk of a game - it's funny, got a great premise, and the art assets were perfect for the job. Unfortunatley, the premise of the game is the problem, to win a round of RS, you have to be the first to kill off your redshirts. Sadly, it's such a simple premise that once you get through the terrible instructions and figure out that is what you're supposed to do - put your redshirts in situations they are unsuited to handle, while at the same time giving your opponents' redshirts the means to overcome their dire situations - either you're the only one who has figured it out and you win too easily, or if multiple people figure it out, then the whole table becomes deadlocked. There is no replayability to the game at all, and after you've laughed at all the in-jokes once, the game is stale and boring. Which is why the game and WeaselPants folded. Even a 2nd edition that was successfully Kickstarted after the 1st one funded and shipped (and yes, I backed both editions and the one expansion) still did not add enough complexity to the game to fix the lack of replay value. And also why I will never play it with my friends. It still sits on my board game shelf, and I pull it out to show folks every once in a while, but it will never be played.

So many failed Kickstarters (more to come!) did I ever back a successful Kickstarter that I have played and gotten some use out of? Yes, as a matter of fact there is - from the creative big brains at Weta Workshop (yes, the one that did special effects for The Lord of the Rings movies, the recent popular ones) they made a board game set in a sci-fi future that is one part dystopic cyberpunk, "the whole world is run by corporations!", and one part big stompy robots gaining dominance through heavy weapons and placing advertising on buildings. The game is called Giant Killer Robots: Heavy Hitters (GKR for short), and the game, unlike the last one, is fun. There are multiple ways to win, lots of tactics you can employ, and all the pieces you get in the set are cool looking and very tongue-in-cheek funny at the same time. Why the long name? I get the feeling they had an inkling to expand it beyond the first game, but ran out of ideas before they could make game two, as they made some expansions for the first game almost half a decade back and nothing since. In fact, if GKR looks cool to you, now is the time to pick it up, Weta is trying to sell off their last copies and they're half of what I paid in the Kickstarter and a third of what the normal price has been. Get all the expansions and add-ons, too, as I think once they're gone, they'll be impossible to find. Do I play this game frequently? Not really, as it takes a long time to set up and a long time to play, there are other standbys in my collection that are shorter and easier and just as fun, so they get more attention. But still, I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a big, stompy robot combat game. Why did this succeed where Redshirts failed? Weta artists designed the minis and the art, and the humor on the cards, but they hired a professional game maker (who knew this was a profession? "what do you do for a living?" "I make board and card games" "how do I kill you and take over your life?" "if you kill me, I will only return stronger than before!") who had made successful board games many times before and he made sure the game was fun and had the right amount of complexity to it.

Gaslands Tabletop Wargame - I told you before I would get to an Osprey "pamphlet" game, and here we are. Gaslands is a simple game of post-apocalyptic vehicular combat (think the movies Mad Max: Fury Road or Death Race, but more like a competition as seen in Death Race than a survivalist piece as seen in any of the Mad Max films) that uses Hot Wheels/Matchbox scale cars for the base models. This is less a game that is about selling customers screamingly expensive, bespoke armies to make wads of cash for the makers, but about having fun with your friends in a cheap and inexpensive way, with as many materials as you probably already have in your house. Got some Hot Wheels or Matchbox cars kicking around from your childhood or in your child's/children's toybox(es)? You're already halfway to having most of what you need for this game. And if you don't have any cars floating around your house, they're basically a dollar new at the store, or you can get a bunch of them from Goodwill for even cheaper (and the more beat up they are, the better). Now, admittedly, this is not a terribly deep game, full of lore and backstory, and there is little to do with the setting they have established outside of the car game itself, but that is not its purpose, it was meant to be a low cost, low time sink, beer and pretzels game that you and your friends distract yourselves with in between your more serious games. The only other big downside to the game is that, except for the books, Osprey makes and sells NOTHING for this game, not fancy dice, not the movement templates you have to have to play, not even weapons or other upgrades for the cars, like tires and engines and guns, so many guns. You have to either make it yourself (3d print hobbyists LOVE this game as almost everything can be 3d printed for it) or buy it from an online seller. And no, I still can't interest any of my gaming friends to come over, make up a bunch of cars, and play some games of Gaslands. Before I move on to the next game, I will say that if this game sounds interesting to you, Osprey has released an updated version of the Gaslands rules, called Gaslands: Refuelled, and I suggest you get this newer version instead. It's still super affordable (less than $20 for the book) and it has all the extra stuff Osprey has released for the game since the original's release, like war rigs (think the semi-truck they use in The Road Warrior to smuggle out the gas from the refinery) and zombie squishing races. Now I want to print up a bunch of random weapons and car accessories, a couple sets of templates, and some dice and put out an invite to see who's interested.

DIE the Role-Playing Game - here is another game I backed on Kickstarter, and just like PM, DIE is also based on a comic of the same name, physical this time instead of being a webcomic. If you're not familiar with the story, DIE is about 6 teenagers who went to a friend's house to play a RPG, got sucked into that RPG world, and then came back to the real world... only to then go back to the RPG world some years later to take care of some unresolved issues from the first go-round. This is a classic kind of story, as seen in the movie Tron, the book Quag Keep, and the recently popular anime/manga genre known as isekai. Side note, if you've never read Quag Keep, go do it, it's some fascinating lore from the early days of Dungeons & Dragons, as the author, Andre Norton, was introduced to D&D by Gary Gygax himself and she wrote this book based on that introduction. Anyway, back to DIE - the game has so recently been funded that, as I am typing this, I have received the pdf of the game, but not the physical copy of it yet. I could use that pdf to try to get a game going, or even do a one shot, but with all the problems I have had trying to get a Savage Worlds game going, much less PM, that I doubt I'll ever get to play/run DIE. Plus, I'm also a little hesitant as I don't know if I would do a DIE game/campaign justice, as this is not your normal hack 'n' slash dungeon delve, oh no, this is a fancy, thinking person's type of game, one that deals with feelings and interpersonal relationships, and while I'm a decent enough DM for 5e and GM for CPRed, I worry that I'm not good enough for a story as high of a caliber as the original comic and this game both have. But I still backed it, because I believe in voting with my money and that people who make awesome things outside of the normal channels (the comic was not published by Marvel or DC, and the game does not use WotC's OGL d20 system) should get my business... when I can afford it. 

Again, another game destined to gather dust, as I've been unable to get my RPG-playing, comics-interested friends in reading the comic book itself, I doubt I'll get them interested in such a cerebral undertaking as playing this game. I'm far more likely to get a group around either a more action packed game (my failed Savage Worlds experiment, or PM above) or something more traditional (basically, even with the WotC OGL kerfuffle I still couldn't get anyone interested in Savage Worlds, while half the D&D players across the globe, and even locally, were swearing off D&D in response... I'm beginning to think it's me) (or that gamers are just like everyone else on the planet who proclaim they are bored and want to try something new, but in reality want just more of the same old, same old; it's why I gave up waiting for friends and coworkers to go play paintball with, and simply went to the field to play with whoever else showed up), and DIE, as cool as it is, just isn't either of those things.

Mobile Frame Zero: Rapid Attack and Intercept Orbit, LEGO based tabletop wargame - yep, another Kickstarter I backed years ago and have still only played a game or two of. This one, like several other games on here, is still barely alive, in that you can still buy the books (or download them for free, Intercept Orbit here), but beyond that, there's not much of a community backing it and the creative team behind the games have moved on to different projects. The idea behind MF0: Rapid Attack is big stompy mech combat, but everything from the robots to the terrain is made out of LEGO bricks, and you pull pieces off to represent damage. So your mech hides from mine behind a wall, and I shoot the wall up, taking off so many bricks with each hit, and when the wall is gone, that's it, I start hitting your mech. Each hit on your mech destroys a system (pardon me if I get this wrong, it's been a long time since I've looked at the rules) and you remove the bricks that represent that system from your mech, be they shields or weapons or movement thrusters. And since it's all based on LEGO bricks, and LEGO lost the proprietary lock on their dimensions a while ago so now EVERYONE'S building bricks are the same dimensions, you can use practically everyone's building bricks to make any mech you can dream up. How inventive can you get? Check out this Flickr group that is nothing but MF0 designs. The other game in the pair, MF0: Intercept Orbit, is the space combat portion of the hard sci-fi universe that the game resides in. Same idea, though, make LEGO spaceships and battle each other. These games, like Gaslands, are very "light" games, only three factions in the setting with very little backstory on any of them, and then all the rules you need to play, plus some plans to make some mechs/spaceships.

Once again, can't interest anyone in playing either game, even if they are super cheap (both games are FREE to download, and I know if you're reading this, you probably have a bucket of LEGOs or other compatible bricks gathering dust in your house) and easy to pickup the rules to play. There is one problem with these two, however, but it's not terribly obvious here as it is in other games, but this is where I personally started seeing this trend in the games industry - Wokeness. Do the creators of MF0 pray to the Woke egregore that has been building over the last decade on social media? Yes, yes they do, but not as bad as some others I've seen or even talked about on this very blog. How bad is it in the industry today? I saw mention of a new RPG that had come out in the past year and noticed they had a free version of their rules for download, just a taste of the rules and backstory to give you a demo to entice you back to purchase the full game. I download it, and then after reading the intro of the whole book, where they talk about the creative team's race, gender, and sexuality, virtue signaling their Wokeness far and wide by decrying the horrible things they depict in a work of fiction, which is where I deleted the file and am no longer intrigued by the game. No really, I came here to play a game, not acknowledge your virtue signaling and honestly, as long as you're not breaking the law, I could care less about any of that stuff. You want equality, there it is - I am apathetic to ANYONE'S race, creed, gender, sexuality, or tendency to pee standing up, sitting down, or laying on your side, just so long as you can be a productive member of society and do well at whatever job you have. When I get into a game of any type, I don't want to be preached at about how awful a person I am, I came to play a game, please spend your time writing what I need to play your game in the book and leave out your Woke screed. And let's be honest, if you didn't have some upsetting things in your RPG, it wouldn't be interesting enough for anyone to want to play, as no one brags about how they planted a community garden in Friends & Feelings, they talk about how they committed some intransigencies against the Geneva Convention on their way to snuffing out the bad guy. Sadly, MF0 suffers from this a bit, here is an example from their Creative Commons license, talking about creating your own setting to use their combat rules -  "Design your setting in such a way that the signature elements of feudal, authoritarian, totalitarian, communist, corporate/anarcho-capitalist, or democidal political structures that are not true, workable, or morally acceptable in the real world are equally untrue, unworkable, and unacceptable in your setting." Um, I hate to say this, but there are completely morally corrupt regimes (morally corrupt by our standards in the US as well as elsewhere, but not everywhere, in the world) that have been THRIVING for decades and still going. So why can't I include them in my new setting, just because you don't like them? You really don't know how conflict in fiction really works, do you? Anyway, trust me when I say I interacted with the major players in the creative team on social media (this game came out when Google Plus was still a thing, and the MF0 team and fans were big on that platform) and eventually blocked them all for being overly Woke, raging assholes. Too bad, they made a very fun game.

That is my collection. I'm sure I've had other games that were so bad that they were merely unremarkable or I blocked them from my memory so I wouldn't inflict that hurt on myself again. I seem to remember a friend bringing out some card game that was about castle walls, but you put your troops (swordsmen, spearmen, archers) in front of the walls to protect the walls from getting destroyed, which is where I gave up playing because that makes no sense. And I have a ton of computer games that I've purchased that I haven't played yet, but I have to finish typing this and post it to the internet at some point before the heat death of the universe. What about you folks, what games do you have in your collection that you'll probably never get around to playing?