In October we played a Song of Drums and Kepis game using the Convoy Scenario, we set the game in the period on the Second French Intervention in Mexico circa 1862.
Al and Maurice commanded the French and were in charge of the convoy, Dave and George led the locals.
The Mexicans line up before the Action Captain Martinez and Sharpshooter Paulo up front!
The 'Armies'
The French
1 x Officer Lt Dreyfus
1 x Sergeant Sgt Depp
7 x Elite Legionnaires
1 x Supply Cart and Civilian Driver 'Bob'
The Mexicans
1 x Officer - Captain Martinez
1 x Crack Shot - Paulo
10 x Regular Infantry
The AAR
Turns one and two, the French got off to a good start the convoy moving along with a couple of successful activations and with no Mexicans appearing on the horizon, it was looking like a walk in the park thought Lieutenant Dreyfus.
Turn three a group of Mexicans appeared in the woods to the right of the road, Lieutenant Dreyfus allocated 4 Legionnaires to deal with them! Simultaneously Mexican Captain Martinez had sprung his trap he ordered his men to take carefully aimed shots at the French opposite them, every shot missed!
Turn four while Bob led the convey the escorts to the right of the road charged the Mexicans facing them! Martinez seeing the French advancing barked orders to his men to reload and fire as a group, they failed to heed his command thanks to a poor activation roll, he started to shake in his boots! Due to this poor command performance the second group of Mexicans including a crack shot known only as Paulo failed to move into action!
Turn five and Captain Martinez was hit by a bullet rendering hors de combat and his men were overrun by the rampaging Legionnaires! The second group of Mexicans failed their first activation again causing a turnover ending the hapless Mexican involvement in the turn!
Turn six and Bob, Sgt Depp and the convoy exited the table whilst one Mexican out of a group of five managed to activate, too little too late!
A decisive French victory! Well done Al and Maurice.
Some Pictures (I didn't take many was watching how the action played out!)
The French Legionnaires escorting vital supplies enter the fray...
All seems ominously quiet!
A volley of shots rings out breaking deadly silence at the order of Captain Martinez!
Three Frenchman hit the dirt but the fire inflicts no lasting damage!
Lieutenant 'X' orders his left to charge the Mexicans in the woods while Bob continues to lead the precious cargo further along the road...
Under pressure the Mexicans try a Group Action to prepare a second volley to meet the oncoming Frenchies...they roll disastrously...no actions, plus this being the first try to activate this phase/turn that means that no other Mexicans get a chance to activate! Oh dear!
The Legionnaires reach the Mexicans at the tree line and decimate them!
A sole Mexican stands firm defeating three attacks!
Bob and his Escort safely cross the required ground...
After Game Stuff
A convincing victory to the French Foreign Legionnaires!
Until recently and since day one we have been playing Song of Drums and Shakos wrongly (all my fault), we had full turns and allowed all miniatures a chance to activate and then move onto the next turn BUT apparently every ‘turnover’ resets all the miniatures to ‘ready to activate’ status. Wow has this changed the feel of the games played, from one of my favourite sets of rules it’s tumbled to ‘Ah Song of Drums again…’ status! Now unless you play with forces with balanced Quality (read Activation) Numbers it turns into a one sided affair just like this game was. Then if you have two elite sides it is virtually IGOUGO with only a double one causing a turnover and lastly if you have two sides of poor quality troops playing it’s painful with turnover followed by turnover resetting all miniatures often resulting in IGOUGO by miniature. Now effectively Units have two Levels of Activation; a test using their Quality Number and the Turnover excluding a chance for dice rolls 😳!
As an aside we played Fistful of Lead recently and I am thinking of using that for skirmish games now, a couple more trial games to follow!
Ouch! Maybe look at an alternative method to activate units? TSATF used a card deck, red or black determined which side could 'actvate' next.
ReplyDeleteCheers Pancerni!
DeleteThanks for posting.
The rules work great if each miniature gets a chance to activate each turn (wrong way), with turnovers resetting everything (correct way) it's a totally different beast!
What is the reset on a turnover?
DeletePalaeo Diet uses this activation system, but is essentially a solo game. You activate every figure every turn (indeed you *have* to) but any failures cause the non-player figures (the hunted beasts) to react in some way.
Playing with a points value system does offset the poor quality vs high quality situation.
Hi KK, thanks for taking the time to reply, okay for years we've been playing turns in SDS with all figures getting to try to activate each turn but 2 or more activation roll failures turnovers the initiative to the other side, it alternated until each figure of both sides had a try to activate. But page 6 of the rules features this "When all of a player’s models have been activated, or whenever the acting player rolls 2 or 3 failures in the same dice roll, play passes to the opponent. Note that Initiative is not rolled again -- players simply alternate activating their models until they roll a double failure or until all of their models have been activated" reading that it appears if you turnover due to failed activations the next player has ALL his miniatures available to activate and if they turnover before activating them all initiative goes back to you and again ALL of your miniatures are available to activate, sides with lower Q levels are never going to have a chance 🙃 SDS was one of my favourite sets of rules but no more...
DeleteI think with lower quality forces you need leaders to boost the Q value, or you only use one dice for activation (so there's no chance of failures, but each figure gets to do less)
DeleteYour right KK more (expendie) leaders would help, single activations help too but at some point your figures will need to reload haha 😄!
DeleteGreat looking game Captain. Unfortunate result from the rules.
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like even though one side may have more figures with low activations compared to the other side with just a few elite figures, the extra figures do not help if you never get to activate.
Cheers Ben, if we go with SDS again I'll suggest going back to how we used to play, if concensus is against that I'll grin and bear it oh and pick an elite force 😀
Delete