New Camera, Old Problems

Following the introduction of Zoom last week, I stepped up another gear in picture quality for this week's game by upgrading my camera. The £20 one I originally bought has served its purpose in proving on-line games can be made to work, but its picture quality and lack of autofocus was starting to get me down. As we've got several more months of this, investment in something a bit better seemed worth it. Shame I forgot to take any screen shots during the game.

We played the scenario from last week, only this time with six players. That meant I needed to juggle the commands a bit. This wasn't helped as I'd cunningly managed to save an old version of the orbats over updated ones, and so everyone had slightly incorrect troop listings (I need to fix this, as the scenario is going into a downloadable resource pack for the rules most likely). Anyway, Ian & Richard took their commands from last week, and Steve got the centre column on the Republican side. For the Nationalists Jon & Phil reprised their roles, and Will took on the new function as commander of the armoured reserve and artillery park (well, I say artillery park. He had a field gun battery, nicked from Phil's force listing. I probably should have told him).

As before both sides are tussling to control the Three Bridges. Nationalists to the Right, Republicans to the Left. 

I tried to experiment with having a fixed camera, and a roving one on my phone. It's technically possible, but I decided in the end with managing several players it'd be too much.

I had reworked the card allocation process. Each brigade gets a core number of command cards, and then the C-in-C doles out those got through the initiative roll to the various sub commanders. With Jon winning the initiative, he let Phil go first, and he stormed across the table to try and capture the bridge furthest from the Nationalist base line. He's got a Foreign Legion Tercio, so why not?  Ian was up next, and pushed a battalion of Popular Army forwards and inflicted the first hits of the game.

Steve moved onto the table tentatively. He was keeping pace with his FT-17.

Will then entered the fray. His tanks motored up the main road to take the bridge. The truck climbing the hill has his artillery observer in it. Strangely, in defiance of his colleagues, he only brought on one of his guns. He was fearful of them being bombed if placed together, but it does double the command cards needed. It all then got a bit exciting (well, it had to happen at some point, you'd hope).

Will drove his tanks across the bridge and fanned them out to protect it. Jon sent a battalion of Regular Army up the road to secure the crossing. 

The Republicans had a joker, and called in an airstrike. Three Tupolev SB-2s arrived, and caused a measly one (1) Blast Marker. Alas for Jon, that's enough to cause a Terror Test. Jon duly rolled a 1...

...and for the second week in a row his chaps decided they'd rather be elsewhere. I have to say I admire Jon's stoicism. He took it remarkably well.

Of course he could have been kicking his cat under the table in frustration. Who is to say when we're all in our own homes?

Ian brought on another battalion of infantry, and sent them off to take the high ground.

The firefight at the bridge intensified. 

Up the other end of the table, Jon had moved his Civil Guards up to the river bank and adopted a defensive position. Richard is sneaking his Asaltos up through the woods again.

In the centre, Steve pushed on.

A-ha! The Nationalists play a joker, and get some Divisional artillery. Phil requests it is called down on Ian near the bridge.

Not too drastic, but Ian is now pinned in position and can't fire.

Richard has seen Jon's tactic of taking cover on the river bank, and brings up his Asaltos and an army battalion. Fire is exchanged.

A lone Republican bomber has a go at Phil's Bandera near the bridge. If you look closely you can see that Phil has reorganised his legionnaires to reduce casualties.

Phil's legionnaires are Pinned by the bombing run, but his Moroccans cross the river. Ian's troops near the bridge had taken some fire, lost a base or two and had to take an "It Tolls For Thee" test. They duly failed it, and flee the scene.

Another Republican airstrike. This time a strafing run but some I16s.

In the centre, Steve had resorted to launching infantry assaults on Will's tanks. It hadn't gone well.

This is the final; position after 2 1/2 hour's play, more or less. There have been some incidents not covered. Will did finally deploy his field gun, and Steve's Renault had been forced to retire by artillery fire. The Nationalists hold two bridges and dispute 1, so they get a significant victory. The Republicans are left scrabbling around looking for Trotskyite Fascist sympathisers who caused the defeat. Let the witch hunt begin.

We got a lot done in the time, but it was a challenge handling 6 players, some new-ish to the system. The new arrangements (including moving a mesh wi-fi hub) helped on the technical side. I think with two players (the target audience for the system) we'd have been done and dusted with one side or the other streaming off the table, so I'm happy with the rules and the pace of the game. Tactics are beginning to emerge, developed by the players, which are in keeping with my intentions, so that's good.

I need to take a break form this system for a week or so, as I've signed up to run a Taiping Era game at a virtual conference the first weekend in February. If I'd known that these rules would be this far advanced, I'd have offered it instead. Still, a break might enable me to take a fresh look before I press the publish button, some time in February.