Sunday, March 6, 2016

Lock n Load Tactical: Bloody Valley

I'm on a quest to play more of my board games by playing them in Vassal. I'm hoping the Vassal allows me to play more by avoiding most of the setup overhead, and allowing me to play what I might be interested in at the moment, even if I have another game set up and taking up all of my table space.

Game setup positions

The scenario in this case is "Bloody Valley" from Lock n' Load Tactical Heroes of the Blitzkrieg:

Near Schwarzenbach, Germany; November 1939
In No-man's Land, French recon patrols identified a German presence near the road crossing at the Winsbach Forest. Elements of the 5th Colonial Infantry Regiment were ordered to clear the area, in a coordinated assault with the 15th Chasseurs Alpins stationed in the village of Schwarzenbach. The plan called for the Colonials to infiltrate an abandoned village in front of the German positions, while Groupe Franc flanked the enemy. With Spahtruppen (German recon patrols) known to be in the area, the assault proved to be no easy task.

Turn 1. The Colonials infiltrate the village while Groupe Franc enters the map from the west and the Germans hold position
I'll be running a bunch of LnL Tactical games at Origins this year. I want to be sure I play a fair amount prior to June so that I have the rules down cold.

Turn 3. The Colonials attempt to assault a German bunker on the right flank. German opportunity fire from two bunkers shakes all the advancing French units.
This is a good, fast playing game system when you get the basics down. I find a lot of people get confused with the spotting rules, thinking that you manually need to spot all the time. In fact, manual spotting is almost never called for and rarely appropriate. Units moving, firing, and being adjacent is usually enough to cause hexes to become spotted without it.

I'm finding Vassal useful, but there's something unsatisfying about not having the map and counters on the table.

3 comments:

  1. If you don’t eat your setup overhead, you can’t have the map and counters on the table. How can you have the map and counters on the table if you don’t eat your setup overhead? – Field Marshall Pink Floyd

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