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Winter Offensive 2017 After Action Report

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Certain occurrences trigger a realization that another year has passed, making one wonder just where the time has gone. The swallows return to Capistrano, the bulls have their fun in Pamplona, and, for wargamers of a particular bent, the Comfort Inn in Bowie, MD, opens up three conference rooms and hosts Winter Offensive. This year’s running of the gamers has come and gone again, with hosts Multi-Man Publishing putting on yet another sterling Advanced Squad Leader tournament and general purpose gaming cavalcade.

Winter Offensive 2017

Attendance this year seemed slightly down from the 2015 peak of 165 gamers, with no exhortations needed on prime day Saturday to free up table space. A minor weather scare might have dampened attendance somewhat, and with no marquee MMP product being released this year, the crowds that typically attend in conjunction with such releases also failed to materialize. But the room was still nicely packed, and while the fair majority of gamers were there to play ASL, wargamers interested in other MMP product lines, like the Great Campaigns of the American Civil War, the Standard Combat Series, and the Operational Combat Series, as well as other wargames, took up a good third of the table space by my rough estimation. It’s no longer a safe assumption that anyone you speak with at Winter Offensive will be an Advanced Squad Leader player only (if, indeed, at all!).

My gaming weekend started out with an exhaustive playtest of Red Storm: The Air War over Central Germany, 1987, an operational air combat game being designed for GMT Games by Doug Bush, one of my long-time gaming buddies and an all-around good guy. We tested one of the larger scenarios in the game, portraying a large NATO air strike on several Warsaw Pact airfields deep in East Germany.

Red Storm Playtest at Winter Offensive 2017; playtest art/not final art

Defended by a massive belt of anti-air missiles, the airfields were a tough target, one that took the full complement of Doug’s considerable forces some time to pick their way through. The game system features many rules for air-to-ground and ground-to-air combat, including electronic countermeasures and anti-radar missiles, and we used them all in this one. The scenario depicted (all art is playtest and provisional; not final art) falls on the more complex side of what Red Storm has to offer; a full range of scenarios covers actions from small fighter engagements and bombing missions through to night paratrooper insertions. Several people stopped by to ask questions and watch a few minutes of gameplay, and I think this game has quite a bit of appeal—lots of interesting and difficult decision making, cool hardware, and a well-tested game system chassis underneath.

Saturday’s main event fell on the ASL side of the equation, as Mike Vogt and I sampled 159 “White Tigers,” a classic scenario pitting Japanese attackers against Gurkha defenders in the midst of an unrelenting rainstorm near Imphal, India. Mike, another of my very good gaming buddies and another all-around good guy, took the IJA forces with the task of occupying buildings. In my defense, I had some stout Indian soldiers and, as importantly, the services of a very flooded river that served to channel the attack into three main avenues.

159 White Tigers at Winter Offensive 2017

The Japanese made good progress on two of the three fronts, Mike’s progress helped somewhat by a few of my attacks turning his cardboard soldiers into berserkers who could run through the withering fire covering the most critical chokepoint on the map. My dice were quite hot throughout, a situation Mike bore with good grace, and by the end of the ten turn scenario, the Japanese had a foothold on the final two buildings they needed to secure the victory. But time just ran out, with the remaining Gurkhas holding on for a very narrow win.

Truly, one of the best ASL experiences I’ve had in a long time—great opponent, tense scenario, and a visual treat as well. Matches like this one encourage me to try to play more of this unparalleled game, about as close to a resolution as I’ve made so far in this new year.

Of course, it wouldn’t be Winter Offensive without the side gaming, and I managed to fit in two matches of group favorite Battlestar Galactica and three of The Dragon & Flagon, a relatively new fantasy bar fight game that seemed to be a big hit (pun slightly intended) with everyone. Many old friends were in attendance, too, and having the gang back together just makes a good gaming convention even better.

Battlestar Galactica at Winter Offensive 2017

My thanks, as always, to Perry Cocke, Brian Youse, and the rest of the team at MMP for another successful Winter Offensive, and to my gaming compadres for a great weekend of gaming. It might not keep getting bigger, year after year, but it certainly seems to keep getting better.

Winter Offensive 2016 After Action Report

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If awards were given out for truth in advertising, then Winter Offensive 2016 would win handily. This year’s edition of the East Coast’s premier Advanced Squad Leader tournament coincided with the largest snowstorm in quite some time. As of this posting, it’s still going on, as I abandoned not-so-bucolic Bowie, Maryland, on Friday the 22nd, opting not to ride out the storm at the Comfort Inn Conference Center. More than a few hearty souls have decided to hunker down, though, obviously tempted by the prospect of being snowed in with nothing to do but play games until the roads clear. Certainly seems like one version of paradise, I have to confess.

By the time I left, about three hours before the onset of the snow, at least sixty people were still rolling dice and pushing cardboard. Over a hundred people were reported to have pre-registered, and more gamers showed up on the con’s initial day, Thursday, than I recall in recent memory. The usual crowd turned out in full force, with the crews from North Carolina, New York, and Norfolk all well in attendance in addition to the local lads. Still, despite the decent showing, Winter Offensive felt smaller this year, solely because the sliding wall partitions between the three convention rooms remained closed for unclear reasons. Also unexpected, MMP gave pre-registered attendees a gratis copy of ASL Journal 11, crammed full of new scenarios, including a pair of three-player scenarios sure to see much play.

So, with only twenty-four hours to play, I tried to cram in as much gaming as possible. Starting off on Thursday afternoon, I matched wits with all-around good guy Mike Vogt in BoF8 “Sting of the Italian Hornet,” an Advanced Squad Leader scenario full of funky Italian vehicles. (I sort of have a weakness for funky Italian vehicles.) We had pre-arranged the match, so I spent a fair bit of time before the con sketching out my Italian defense, putting my infantry guns up front and hoping to keep them hidden until Mike’s Canadians rolled their vehicles by, so I could try for flank and rear shots. Of course, Mike made an unerring beeline right for the gun positions, and both were quickly surrounded by infantry and tanks. I got some lucky shots and landed a few big hits, managing to keep the Canadians at bay long enough to stymie Mike’s carefully plotted advance. He moved as quickly as possible through the protective smoke he artfully laid down, but time was against him.

Advanced Squad Leader at Winter Offensive 16

A solid scenario (if a bit tight for the Canadians in terms of their goals) against a great opponent. Definitely the kind of scenario that reminds you why ASL has been around as long as it has—lots of moving parts that fit together very well to produce an entertaining (if not entirely historically accurate) gaming experience.

Thursday evening, Mike and I joined John Slotwinski, Doug Bush, and Ken Dunn for the traditional Winter Offensive match of Battlestar Galactica. Many, many Basestars were used in the early going, with four on the map at once, accompanied by the entire piece mix of Cylon Raiders. Sadly (for me, as a Cylon), the Galactica and Pegasus escaped from that trap using Cain’s emergency jump one-time ability, and the humans had a fairly easy coast to victory thereafter. In my mechanical defense, I didn’t become a Cylon until after the great escape, so I might have been inadvertently instrumental in helping the humans win just a little bit. Not that anyone cared, because the first action taken after the narrow escape was to put me in the Brig. Hmph. A fine session with some thoroughly enjoyable gamers. As should always be the case after a good game of Battlestar Galactica, the recriminations will last for months.

Battlestar Galactica at Winter Offensive 16

Friday, Doug and I set up Mikugames’ Tornio ’44, a company-level game on the Finnish naval landings behind German lines in central and western Finland, designed to trap the evacuating Germans after the Finnish/Soviet armistice. The game uses an interesting combat system, where the final odds ratio of a combat corresponds directly to the number of dice rolled; the opposing player must spend that dice roll total via a menu, from an inexpensive and relatively mild Broken status through retreats and step losses. The situation itself offers a fascinating challenge, as the Germans have to face Finnish units arriving from several avenues (most of which are chosen by the Finnish player) while keeping escape routes open and protecting victory point locations. The gameplay ebbs and flows. My Finns opened strongly, then the weather turned poor, delaying my reinforcements by a turn and allowing Doug’s Germans to occupy one of my planned avenues of advance. I was able to recover somewhat, but the density of German artillery began to take a toll on my units. We had to call the match half-way through due to the onset of snow (in the real world, not the game) with the Germans arguably in better shape, VP-wise. Hopefully we’ll be able to get this one on the table again for a full session, because it’s the most interesting wargame I’ve played in some time.

Tornio 44 at Winter Offensive 16

As always, my congratulations and thanks to the team at Multi-Man Publishing for another solid event, albeit one that was cut somewhat short for me. It felt strange, and somewhat wrong, to be leaving on Friday as opposed to Sunday, but since I used up quite a bit of my luck via gaming, I didn’t want to take chances with Mother Nature this time out. I hope everyone still there has a safe and enjoyable time of it.

Winter Offensive 2015 After Action Report

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How many wargamers can you fit in 4,500 square feet of conference space, assuming you factor in room for tables, chairs, dice towers, and a keg? At least 165 if you were at Winter Offensive 2015 in Bowie, Maryland, the latest installation of the East Coast’s premier Advanced Squad Leader tournament, held annually over Martin Luther King, Jr. Day weekend.

A Sea of Gamers

This year’s event saw the most attendees ever, nearly twenty more than last year’s record crowd. By noon on Saturday, all available table space seemed to have filled up, though most people were happy to share space. Attendance was likely boosted by the debut of the long-awaited “final” core module for ASL, Hakkaa Päälle, which (re)introduces the Finns to the tactical gaming system.

The printing on the new Finnish counters came out quite nicely, and the light grey color chosen works well in the system, as long as you don’t have them fighting the Italians, who share the same counter palette. The counter material also rounded quite nicely, as I brought my handy-dandy deluxe counter corner rounder with me to the tournament for the express purpose of clipping the Finns. Quite a few people stopped by and asked about the labor-saving wonder device, which gently rounds off the otherwise nubby edges to produce an aesthetically pleasing and easily manipulable counter. I dare say I converted at least a few people to the church of Oregon Laminations (just in case there’s a rounder referral rewards program I don’t know about…).

Fear the Finns!

I had the privilege of taking the fresh Finns out for a spin against regular gaming chum and all-around good guy Mike Vogt, who had the Soviets on defense in 172 “The Last Attack,” a scenario chosen almost entirely because one of the Finnish leaders enters the game on a bicycle. He didn’t last long, but the match went almost to the end. Mike set up a canny defense (and employed some absurd fire discipline) and was able to slow my progress enough to hold one of the required victory conditions for a well-deserved win. We had a series of interminable melees that I kept pouring units into, only to see them ground up. Probably not the best strategy, but a greater principle was at stake. I was not going to lose those melees. I did, of course, but that’s beside the point. A pleasure as always playing against Mike.

Long-time opponent Doug Bush provided the other major gaming event of the tournament for me, our traditional all-day non-ASL match. Following on last year’s playing of SPI’s BAOR, we switched to a tighter scale with SPI’s Berlin ’85, covering a hypothetical attempt by the Warsaw Pact to overrun the NATO West Berlin garrison at the start of WW III. The map, a Simonsen classic, took some getting used to, with its welter of colors and symbols depicting the various types of city terrain and transportation routes, but after a point, they became comprehensible and showed well under the counters. I have a real fondness for the SPI counters from this era, with their crisp lettering and glorious colors.

Berlin 85

The combat system reflects the game’s early ’80s pedigree, with locking Zones of Control, mandatory attacks, and a heavy reliance on retreat results. I still managed to lose quite a few Soviet mechanized battalions to ill-advised attacks against West Berlin police units holed up in heavy urban terrain, and while my East Germans managed a sweeping thrust from Potsdam into the American Sector that threatened to unhinge the NATO defense, Doug managed to hold off my attacks long enough to edge out a Marginal Victory once NATO succumbed to a surrender roll. Both Doug and I agreed that the game deserves another playing, as the system contains a few subtleties that, once grasped, allow for a different tactical approach. A real gem against a great opponent, and a game I’m happy to have added to the played list.

As ever, I managed to get in some side gaming as well, more this year than ever before. Group favorite Pax Porfiriana made the table three times (and, it must be said, I somehow won all three, leading to a prohibition against my playing it anymore). Mike introduced everyone to Panamax, a game about shipping through the Panama Canal. That game, a cross between worker placement style action choices and 18XX financial manipulation, hit the table to rave reviews and got played a good three times. A Study in Emerald came out on Friday night, with the Restorationists solidly thumping the Loyalists, who made their move about a turn too late. I had the honor in that one of putting a stake through the heart of Vampire Sherlock Holmes.

And, of course, the annual playing of Battlestar Galactica on Saturday night ended with, as always, a Cylon victory. The humans were done in by the cagey play of John Slotwinski, who held the Admiral card and concealed his robotic nature long enough to jump the human fleet into the middle of nowhere for the win. We used the Pegasus expansion, adding another Battlestar and Cylon Leaders to the game. The new rules didn’t add much complexity and worked well with six players, but with our standard five player games, I’d opt to use the base rules alone.

My thanks to the team at Multi-Man Publishing for another fine Winter Offensive, and to all my opponents for three days of amazing, and exhausting, gaming.

Winter Offensive 2014 After Action Report

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Another year already? Seems like just yesterday I was walking the halls of the Bowie, Maryland, Comfort Inn for Winter Offensive, the East Coast’s premier Advanced Squad Leader tournament and all-around game fest. The time between these confabs flies by, or perhaps that’s just a side effect of getting older.

Winter Offensive 2014

As ever, hosts Multi-Man Publishing put on a fine show, with Winter Offensive 2014 seeing a record 134 attendees by Saturday afternoon, eight higher than last year’s record of 126. All three ballrooms were open from Thursday’s start, and the extra initial space was much appreciated. Quite a few people were already there by Thursday evening, more than I had seen in years past. The crowd was mostly the same as ever, with familiar faces in abundance and a smattering of new (to me) players.

I started festivities with a playing of Three Crowns/MMP’s A Victory Complete, an operational-level look at the Tannenberg campaign. Chris Chapman, a long-time gaming compatriot, took the overwhelmed yet qualitatively superior Germans against my overwhelming yet qualitatively inferior Russians. The chit-draw game system felt like a comfortable fit for the situation, and we took the game almost to the end before we called it, with the Germans managing to push the Russians out of Prussia, but not enough for more than a marginal victory. Nice graphics overall on this one, though the corps colors for the Russians were nigh indistinguishable from one another in some circumstances, leading to much confusion in a system dependent upon corps-by-corps activations.

The main event (mine, at least) came on Friday, when I matched up with another of my long-time opponents, Doug Bush, in a playing of SPI’s BAOR, part of the Central Front Series focusing on operational-level battles in a thankfully hypothetical WWIII. I had the doughty British Army of the Rhine, holding the Weser River with considerable help from the Belgians and West Germans, while Doug drove the first and second Soviet echelons against my thin line. Neither of us had played the series before, but we soon got the hang of the rather unorthodox attack-as-movement system and the tracking of units’ gradual-then-sudden deterioration via friction points. By the end of the day—we put in a good twelve hours—the Soviets had achieved a substantial victory, with several more turns (and another echelon) to go. They hadn’t breached the Weser, though, so I’ll chalk up a moral victory.

BAOR

The system plays smoothly, particularly for the highly mobile contemporary forces involved. I don’t know that I’ll break this one out again anytime soon, but I’m quite pleased to have finally gotten this old gem (from 1981) off the shelf and onto the table.

For me, this Winter Offensive will probably be remembered as the year I finally broke down and played ASL again, for the first time in years and years. Regular gaming chum Mike Vogt graciously faced off against me and my absurdly dusty rule book in an all-day Saturday scenario, the Chas Smith-designed “The Shan Capital,” featuring Chinese GMD troops holding a town against Thai (!) forces in 1942 Burma. Gotta play something like that, no question, so I took the plunge back into the tactical game system. Mike held on for the victory with a very cagey fighting withdrawal, limiting me to two of the four required victory buildings by scenario’s end. I even managed a Thai hero creation. That’s a feather in any gamer’s hat.

It was good to get some ASL under my belt again. I might have to start playing a bit more—there’s a reason the system is going strong almost thirty years after its release.

No Winter Offensive would be complete without some late-night gaming. I played in fewer than usual this year, only managing one play of Sierra Madre’s Pax Porfiriana, my current card game of choice, and one of FFG’s Battlestar Galactica, a game that has become something of a cult favorite with my gaming crowd. The humans lost in the latter, coming a single jump away from reaching Kobol, but the toasters prevailed, as is their metallic wont.

My thanks to the team at MMP for another great three days of gaming. Now if only I could get three days of sleep to compensate.

Winter Offensive 2013 After Action Report

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Sure, it may have been seventy degrees outside, but this past weekend in Bowie, Maryland, it was Winter Offensive 2013 inside, as Multi-Man Publishing‘s annual Advanced Squad Leader tournament and all-around gamefest took place.

A view from the Winter Offensive '13 trenches

Attendance at the East Coast’s premier ASL event initially seemed a bit off from years past (though no complaints from a table-space perspective), perhaps owing to the slightly changed date. Typically, Winter Offensive is held over Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend, but the proximity of the Presidential Inauguration put paid to those plans this year. Saturday, however, saw a major influx of gamers, bringing the total up to 126 over the course of the event, pipping 2012’s 125 gamers.

The old gang was all in attendance, and, as has become my wont, I managed to play a total of zero games of ASL, though my resistance weakened somewhat when I saw a beautiful scenario featuring bicycle-mounted Japanese troops supported by some of the most obscure tankettes in the game in the Phillipines facing U.S. Army cavalry. Early war, PTO, junky tanks, and bicycles? Yes, please! Time to dust off the ol’ rulebook, I think.

GMT's Bloody AprilI managed to game aplenty, though. After spending much of Thursday catching up with people, I spent the vast majority of Friday playing a huge scenario from GMT’s Bloody April, a World War One grand tactical air game, with my Germans (including von Richtofen himself) facing off against Doug Bush’s British pilots.

Though the Germans tallied far more British flights shot down (the Baron himself had four kills), the Brits were able to accomplish more than enough of their objectives to see them win handily. The system is nice, though a bit cumbersome given the need to track nearly ten variables per flight counter on the map. Still, by the end of fifty turns, we had the climbing, diving, and dogfighting down pat.

Friday evening was given over to GMT’s Twilight Struggle against Chris Chapman, who took the Soviets against my Americans in a replay of the Cold War. Honors were even until the mid-war phase, at which point the Soviets scored quite a few regions. With a +16 VP lead, Chris seemed in control, so I started to play around with DEFCON, but the gamble led to an unfortunate end for the planet when the Soviets were able to push DEFCON to zero owing to my own card play. A rematch has been demanded!

Far too bright and early on Saturday, I faced off against Mike Vogt in MMP’s No Question of Surrender, taking the Italians as they besieged the Free French in their desert fort. This was my first experience with MMP’s Grand Tactical System, a company level, chit-activation wargame. While I like the underlying system—it’s simple to learn but difficult to get all the parts working synergistically—I was underwhelmed by the tactical situation portrayed. The Italians pretty much just crashed like weak waves against the French fort, and Mike was probably getting tired of rolling so much opportunity fire against them. Still, it was nice to see the rules in action, and always a pleasure to match wits with Mike.

By Saturday afternoon, a bit of heavy-gaming fatigue had started to set in, so lighter fare became the norm, and I played through two games of FFG’s Battlestar Galactica. Much to my dismay, I was never a Cylon traitor, though I was accused of such in both games (and even sent to the brig once). The Cylons won the first game without much fuss, but the second saw cagier play by the humans, leading to a narrow escape from the toasters. I’d gladly play this one again, but you need a good-natured group for it—the potential (nay, necessity) for offense in this one requires playing against gamers who enjoy gaming more than they enjoy winning.

Winter Offensive always leaves me drained in the aftermath, but for three days of gaming, I’m ready to put it on the calendar for next year. After I catch up on my sleep, that is.

Rumble in the Jungle: MMP’s Angola

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After years of development, Multi-Man Publishing‘s re-make of the Ragnar Brothers‘ Angola has finally arrived, and in fine form.

A meeting of monster columns

This area-move wargame on the Angolan Civil War in the mid-1970s is designed for four players, split into alliances of two players each (one side controlling the FNLA and UNITA forces, the other the FAPLA and MPLA forces that waged war through the Angolan countryside). The game can conceivably be played with fewer than four, but the game strives to model the command-control failures of the various forces and the difficulty they had in coordinating their actions, a difficulty the game emulates in part by prohibiting secret planning. You either tell your partner (and your opponents) that you’re moving to particular town or you don’t say a thing and hope he/she figures it out by the time your forces have arrived. Fewer players means fewer opportunities to mess up a grand sweeping plan, and grand sweeping failures were part of this conflict and an important aspect of the game.

I had the pleasure of playing a four-player session of Angola recently at that finest of local game stores, Labyrinth, on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. Michael Vogt (UNITA) and I (FNLA) squared off against Pablo Garcia-Silva (MPLA) and Doug Bush (FAPLA) in Labyrinth’s gaming area for a stolen Friday afternoon of fun.

None of us had played this game, originally released in 1988, before, but we’re all grizzled wargaming vets, so we forged ahead full speed. Much of the game is familiar wargame stuff, though the enforced fog-of-war rules and a nifty odds determination system meant that attacks often went in at 1:2 ratios, an almost unheard of occurrence in most games. The game system really wants each player to push, and push hard, even at low odds. The card-driven movement system (with only limited opportunities to move units each turns) forces one to use units whenever possible, and a limited countermix and the subsequent loss of reinforcements if you don’t sufficient counters in your pool helps encourage an attacking mindset. Smoke ’em if you’ve got ’em, if you will.

Pablo and Doug’s Cuban-backed forces made good gains early on, and the game design self-balances by giving the side that loses territory the opportunity to gain extra forces from their foreign backers (Zaire and South Africa, for UNITA and FNLA).

The siege of Lobito

After a few bad turns, you’ve got a force to be reckoned with, and Michael and I had a few bad turns, enabling us to push back in style. The UNITA stacks coming out of South Africa were monstrous and inflicted some real damage.

By the time we called the game, both sides were tied and looking quite equally matched, force-wise (though Doug did have a giant air force that dwarfed the rest of us). But because of the early losses, the UNITA/FNLA alliance was in a precarious position—another bad turn could have seen the foreign powers remove all aid. The risk/reward balance in the game is quite finely crafted in that respect: you can’t play rope-a-dope until you have a giant army, because you’ll risk losing your sponsors and will probably be too far behind on points (representing accumulated political victories caused by territorial gains).

Combining ease of play (though with much tactical depth) and a wild random set-up feature, Angola is going to be making the rounds at game conventions for years to come. I foresee quite a few late night four-player sessions of this one at Winter Offensive.

My thanks to the crew at Labyrinth for their gracious hosting and to Pablo, Doug, and Michael for a great afternoon of gaming.