Friday, October 30, 2009

AAR - October 29 - the Hangar

Great meeting of the club members tonight. There were a couple of games going on - several DBA games - Dave v. Wayne, and Dave v. Chuck. Both matchups were Carthaginians v. Camillan Romans. Dave played the Romans in the first game, losing to Wayne, and he played Dread Carthago in the second game, and beat Chuck.

The highlight game of the night seemed to be the great looking Cold War Commander game between Scott and Carl. US vs. Soviets. M1A1 Abrams vs. T80s. Bradleys, Super-Cobras, Soviet Artillery with Thermobaric rounds. All the cool modern toys. Looked like a great scenario. This modern stuff is infectious.

Finally, there was some Settlers of Catan being played after. Sandy won the first game (edging out Erik, Dave and Chuck), and Erik won the second game (squashing Sandy, Oscar and Chuck).

Good times, sorry for all those who weren't there.

Next week is Fall In (huzzah), and the week after we will be back to more gaming!

Friday, October 23, 2009

AAR - October 22 - Cold War Commander

Scott and I played a game of Cold War Commander last night, with 2000 point armies from the Arab-Isreali Wars. We chose the Yom Kippur war (1973) as our topic. Airpower and AA units were off the list.

The Israeli force I put together looked like this:
1x CO (command 10)
2x HQ (command 9)
1x FAO (command 7)
1x Recce Infantry Scouts

1xAssault Armor Platoon - 2xM-60 Magach tanks, and 1xM113 APC (with two squads of infantry, armed with IATW)

1xAssault Armor Platoon - 2xCenturion Sh'ot tanks, and 1xM113 APC (with two squads of infantry, armed with IATW)

1xMech Infantry Platoon - 3xM113 APC (with two squads of infantry, armed with IATW; 1x infantry 81mm mortar; 1x infantry MAPATS ATGW; 2x infantry HMG teams)

1xReserve Infantry Ambush - three squads of infantry, armed with IATW

2xOffboard L-33 155mm howitzers

The Arab force (a Syrian force) against us was armed with T55s and T62s, but had more of them than our Centurions and M-60s. Their infantry seemed to be in BMPs and they were also supported by BRDMs.

Joining me on the Israeli side were Ken Whitehurst and John Callahan, each commanding one of the assault armor platoons.

Joining Scott on the Arab side was David Dietrich.

The game was a lot of fun, although it dragged for a while. The Israeli artillery was pretty successful at counter-battery fire. We won, but that just means it is time for a rematch (soon).

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Services for Rich Villella

A while back, a good friend of ours, and a member of the local wargaming community passed away. There is a eulogy at Chuck's blog remembering Rich Villella.

For ODMS members who remember Rich Villella - this was forwarded by James Curtis -

A memorial service will be held in honor of Richard S. Villella on Friday, October 16, 2009 at 5:30 PM at the Bucktrout Funeral Home on Ironbound Road in Williamsburg . Richard passed away unexpectedly August 21, 2009 at his home. He was 59 years old and worked for Colonial Williamsburg for 28 years as a human resources generalist. Richard will be remembered for his love of family and friends, travel and history. Friends and colleagues are invited to join his family at the memorial.


Location & time:
Bucktrout of Williamsburg
4124 Ironbound RD
16 Oct 09 5:30 PM

Directions from Hampton:
I-64W exit 242B to 199
199 take Monticello exit.
veer right on to Monticello Ave
first traffic light take a right on to Ironbound RD
Follow to next light: located on the right

Dress: civilian casual; any military uniform; or Colonial Williamsburg in costume if coming from work.

Funeral Home URL:
http://www.bucktroutfuneralhome.net/

If you have any questions, please contact me at 757-639-2121

James Curtis



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Monday, October 5, 2009

My Galley Sally - Photo Report

Photos from the recent (Sept 24) ancient naval battle, hosted by Dave and using the "My Galley Sally" rules, have been posted online at:

Pictures!

Sunday, October 4, 2009

AAR - Successor Campaign

We played Wayne's excellent home-made Successor campaign this past Thursday (Oct 1).

The game featured four players - Dave, John, Wayne, and myself. Wayne also served as mentor, tutor, girl-guide, and boy scout to us all as we learned his new system.

The system is a bit more involved (in a very good way) than most of the mini-campaigns that we have tried in the past. It all worked together, however, very well and produced a number of battles (which is the point).

We used a random army system where every army that engaged had its composition randomly determined each battle season (from a list of Successor armies, from the DBA rulebook).

The game featured some naval action (in an abstracted, but satisfying, manner).

The components were very skillfully done by Wayne, and are very interesting in themselves.

I must admit that it was fun to be on the winning side (Team Blue, which consisted of myself and John, vs. Team Red, which was Dave and Wayne). And that was with me fighting my first battle using the Arkansas Chug-a-Bug of Successor armies (II/18c - Macedonian Early Successor, Kassandros). That army has 4 pike, but gets rewarded by having 4 aux (whoopie). Still, it did well enough against Wayne's army (which I don't recall, but had to be either Seleucid II/19a or Ptolemaic II/20a), even though he had 2 Knights and 1 Light Horse, to my 1 Knight and 1 Cav. Very interesting fight. My elephant beat a unit of his auxilia which were backed by psiloi. Splat!

See some of the action in these great photos.

Great stuff - I can't wait for our next DBA night, which will be October 29.

-Chuck (roving reporter of the ODMS wargaming scene)

Upcoming Schedule - October

Upcoming Events at the Hangar (and ODMS related Conventions)

Oct 8 - Go for Broke (Pacific) 28mm - Cliff and Justin

Oct 8 - Cold War Commander - 6mm - Scott and Chuck

Oct 9-11 - Southern Front website

Oct 15 - ??

Oct 17-18 - Military History Weekend (Williamsburg) flyer

Oct 22 - 1/285th scale Arab-Israeli Wars scenario for Cold War Commander (org. by Wayne, Chuck, others)

Oct 29 - DBA free for all (Org by Wayne and John Dent) 15mm

Nov 6-8 - Fall In! (Gettysburg) website