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Fort Worth Gamers: gaming session 09/21/23

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Fort Worth Gamers: gaming session 09/21/23 

Monday, 09/21/23 1 to 6:30 PM at Y2Komics, in southwest Fort Worth, TX.

This was another of our irregularly scheduled game sessions. We had two gamers at one table this clear 95° afternoon.

Today’s game was Dave C’s Memoir ‘44: specifically, Operation Market Garden. The setting was the Netherlands, between September 17 and 27, 1944. (Movie goers might be familiar with the movie made about this battle called “A Bridge Too Far”.)  We played on the accompanying Overlord paper map, which is twice the width of a standard Memoir ‘44 board, and two hex rows deeper. The terrain itself was rather simple. There were great gobs of woods, 12 town hexes, and four rivers (crossed by five bridges). Also on the map was an extensive road network.  The Allied forces (American and British) outnumbered the German forces by 2:1. As to unit types, the vast majority were the usual compliment of infantry and armor, plus a smattering of artillery. The only non-standard unit on the board was a lone German Tiger tank unit; *very* hard to knock out. 

I chose the German side, while Dave ran the Allied side (British and Americans). 

I can’t recall all the special rules that went with this scenario. Some were: vehicles traveling by road got to go one hex farther: (4) rather than the standard (3) if all on road. But off road they moved at one hex less; two instead of three hexes. 

The number of tactics cards each side began with was initially quite lopsided. The Allied player (British and Americans) began with 13 cards in hand. While the German player began with a mere three cards. Ah, but as the game wore on this lopsided ratio began to slowly reverse. But it depended on my Germans killing Allied units. 

One thing that helped movement were the smattering of “On the Move” cards in the deck, that allowed extra movement. 

The victory threshold for both sides was gaining 13 medals. If memory serves, the Allies began with 9 medals, and my Germans started with 3. From that statistic alone one would think this would be an easy victory for the Allies. But the wily scenario creators knew better. For soon after we began playing I started killing Allied units. That earned me more cards in hand, and less for the Allies. 

On and on we went, whacking each other’s infantry and armor (the few artillery units weren‘t often targeted). And the cards in hand ratio continued to slowly reverse. Dave did his level best to destroy as many of my armor and infantry as possible, yet he couldn’t seem to hold back the tide of my German forces. 

As to my lone Tiger tank unit, it spent 95% of the game parked on a bridge hex, blocking the eight British units on my right flank from ever getting into the fight. 

The last two turns were nail biters, as my German forces were now running out of steam. Yet in the end I prevailed, but just barely. 

Final scores: Germans / Michael W 13, Dave C / British & Americans 11. Duration: 3 hours and 4 minutes. It was a squeaker of an ending!   I enjoyed the game, but it did take quite a long time. 


See BoardgameGeek http://www.boardgamegeek.com/ for more information on the games mentioned above. And if you're in the area on Saturday afternoon feel free to join us for a game.

--
Michael Ward
Fort Worth Gamers
And check out our MeetUp page http://www.meetup.com/FortWorthGamers/ .

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Fort Worth Gamers: gaming session 09/21/23 Michael Ward <mward258@gmail.com> - 2023-09-22 21:11 -0700

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