Sand and snow - New Years round up

With a couple of weeks off this Christmas, and limited distractions,  I've managed to get some gaming and painting done since the festivities.

WWII Desert (the sand)

I popped over to Fishponds for a go at V for Victory from Tomahawk studios, a WWII platoon-scale game. We played DAK vs Indians. All their games tend to have a few innovative features and V for Victory is the same. 

Unit activation is done alternatively using cards, seven in your hand at the start of a turn.  Each has a different balance of move, shoot and special / rally so you need to plan carefully at the start of the move what you want to do but leave some flexibility to respond to the enemy. 

Indians advance

It also distinguishes between suppressing fire and shoot-to-kill. The former is easier and can pin-down or eventually rout units, but not maybe as quickly as the harder fire for effect.   

DAK exchange fire with the Indians

The Indians won 2-1 on objectives held, helped by the German MMG in centre table disappearing from a  single round of Indian MMG shooting.  

Rule Britannia

I don't generally play many board games but was tempted to have a go at Britannia, which simulates the events from the Roman invasion up to the Norman invasion. Players each play a colour, with each faction controlling several tribes through the game.  

Combat is very simple but the victory conditions are complex so you need to think hard about where to attack/defend and how to use your leaders. Rome (purple) starts very strong and can quickly conquer most of the map before then facing waves of invasions that nibble away at their control.  

Turn 1 - the Roman invasion gets going

We're 5 turns (from 16) in at at the point the Romans are about to withdraw and the Saxons (red) / Angles (blue) are invading. Rome is a long way ahead on the victory tracker but with few armies and forts left to hand over to the Romano-British, so must hang on as best they can.  As the blue faction my time will come when the Normans (blue) invade towards the end of the game. 

Turn 5 - Rome is spent and the Saxons / Angles are poised 

 

Great North Wars (the snow)

Finally I've got some painting done and have been focusing on my GNW Russians. I've managed to complete some Line Infantry, a Grenadier battalion and Light Gun. The first of the cavalry are glued to together and more stuff is on order to round out the army. Its likely to take the rest of the year to complete the pile of figures I've amassed for this.  

Great North War Russian Grenadiers

Great North War Russian light gun

Great North War Russian line infantry