Last Week of Bounding Fire Big Sale: Ending July 31st.
Orange Blossom – New Scenario Pack from LCP
Hot off the presses into your mailboxes and onto my table. My first impressions of this all cave scenario pack and campaign. Well I guess you can call it an ambush. Not of Tim’s Marines but Tim himself. He showed up innocent and unaware for our Tuesday night game only to be lunged into the barren wasteland of Okinawa’s nastiest battle. Tim had never read the Cave or BD rules let alone had he ever played this ASL delicacy. To be fair, I believe I have only played caves once myself over a decade ago against Anthony Flanagan at the Bitter Ender on a 3D map, so I may not have been the teacher that Tim deserved. So we struggled a little with the concepts but by turn 3 I think we had most of the rules down although we surely missed many of the nuances that only come with experience.
I set up most of my defenders in the Caves of Sugarloaf East while my 81mm Mortar, AT Gun, and HMG were HIP on Half Moon hill across the valley.
Tim rightly guessed the danger from Half Moon hill and blinded me with Smoke before I could even get a shot off. To make matters worse I rolled snakes on the WC DR of turn 1`which resulted in his Smoke and WP drifting North to South 2 and 3 hexes. With the cover his leathernecks managed to get to the top of SL by Turn 3 only to be beaten back by a 448 on the reverse slope just as he was lowering a DC into my Cave and some timely hits including a CH by the Mortar. It was 10:30 by this point and we decided to call it a draw.
I was pleasantly surprised at how quick the scenario played and how much easier it flowed than my past experience. I think that Chad managed to simplify the Cave rules and make it more playable without taking away any of the atmosphere. Two examples are Broken Hill Crests which afford both concealment and TEM, and pre-printed Cave Complexes. The former makes the Crest lines very defendable, encouraging the Japanese to come out and play and the latter saves a lot of time and bookkeeping while setting up and playing the scenario. The complexes are printed right there on the map so there is no need to continually consult a separate cave set-up sheet.
After about three hours we called it a draw on Turn 4 with both sides sustaining bloody noses. We are now ready to spelunk again with a little more confidence. I really suggest giving this a try.
Bitterest Day, Slight Damage – Discounted
We received a few copies of BD that were damaged in transit and Sam has authorized us to sell them at half price. The module is complete and completely usable without any tears, just some scuffing/bending at the corners. I will be sending them best to worst dependent on who’s order comes in first, with the best hardly any noticeable damage and the worst still completely functional.
Bitterest Day: 3D map Preview
It has been years since I have made a 3D map and although I already made a How-To video, it was for a non-ASL map (GMT’s Operation Dauntless), so I thought I would give it another go, this time with Bounding Fire’s new module ‘Bitterest Day’. The reason I was so keen to do this in three dimensions is that it fits the criteria of what makes a good 3D map. Lots of topography with very few buildings and woods. Also, I feel like the Caves give a lot of weight to the hills and the visualization using 3D will bring out the feel of the battle. This one has 9 levels so there is a lot of cutting and sanding to do. Here are some photos but when complete I will post the video to Youtube (don’t forget to subscribe to my channel) and to my next post. I plan to bring the finished map(s) to ASLOK, so if anyone wants to borrow it to play a scenario, just come find me.
Fight For Seoul – Back in Stock. Very limited quantities. These will be out of print very soon.
FFS Alone or in a discounted package deal with Forgotten War: Korea – Core Module
Puzzle #124
As usual, the last German turn of the game (Starting with the PFPh). To win, the German player is two VP short which can be exit VP or Casualty VP. What should the German player do to have the greatest chance of success? Note that the 2 squads, leader, and AFV have all already exited the map.
Note: Puzzle #123 Deleted because it was dumb.