Hexsides and Hand Grenades

I'm halfway through a short campaign in Hornet Leader, the solitaire game of Carrier Air Operations from Dan Verssen Games. Last I wrote, I had just made it to the dawn of Day 3.  I was making steady progress with 3 of 4 successful missions flown. The stress of the missions was taking its toll on my pilots, however, and things were not looking as bright as they should have. Here is a rundown of where we stand as of the morning of Day 3. The chart below shows each pilot in the squadron along with their aircraft. Under each of the "M" columns to the right are the stress levels for each mission. Player Log at the end of Mission 4 (Day 2) Pilot Aircraft Level Promoted XP XP gained Cool M1 M2 M3 M4 Tuna A-7 Newbie 6 3 1 0 3 7 7 Cowboy F-18 Green 6 3 1 7 5 5 2 Moon EA-6 Average 6 0 0 0 0 0 8 Talon F-18 Average 6 3 1 0 0 9 9 Eyes E-2 Average 6 3 0 0 0 5 5 Wolf F-18 Average 7 5 0 4 2 2 7

Here's a short rundown of my recent play of DVG's Hornet Leader , a game I dearly love and don't seem to get on the table often enough.  One of the reasons I like this game so much is that the cover bears a slight resemblance to the logo for my hometown hockey team, the Winnipeg Jets. Time is short these days so I chose a 4-day US Navy campaign. I have played the Desert Storm scenario several times and enjoyed it but I wanted something a bit different this time around so I chose the Libya 1984 campaign. I prefer my gaming set in the 1980s as you can see from most of my blog posts here, so this definitely fit the bill for me. I crossed my fingers and hoped that my squadron in Hornet Leader would fare better than the Jets are doing on the ice this season. They stink! Anyway, let's choose our pilots: 1 Newbie pilot - callsign "Tuna" in an A-7 Corsair (choosing this plane also gives us an additional 4 special option points). Not much to celebrate here.

Here is my final playthrough report of Sal Vasta's  Unconditional Surrender! World War 2 in Europe from GMT. August and September 1942:  The Germans quickly send their repatriated forces from the French campaign over to the eastern front. Soldiers and tanks are strapped to trains and shot off towards Poland or Hungary to try and prevent the Soviet hordes from getting much further into Eastern Europe. The western Allies reel in shock from losing France last month but they do buy back their Surprise Attack marker for 20 production points, which is a start. The BEF is pulled from Greece and docks in British-controlled Libya, waiting for the signal to invade southern Europe. Meanwhile, the Soviets are pushing masses of men and tanks west into Eastern Europe and making fast gains despite the renewed German defensive strength here. Warsaw is lost to Soviet infantry and the German infantry units in central Poland are getting surrounded by Soviet regulars. Despite the win against Franc

Here is my account of how things went in part three of my ongoing playthrough report of Sal Vasta's Unconditional Surrender! World War 2 in Europe. Enjoy! August 1941: The turn starts off with so much promise for the Germans but ends in disaster. In the Soviet Union, the Germans manage to isolate Kiev but fail to take the city itself despite repeated attacks. The result is a Soviet unit that is out of supply and sitting to the northeast of Kiev. Romanian and Bulgarian armies are rushed south to try and hold off the approaching Russians. In the west, the Germans charge south around the Maginot Line (the French had pulled out one of their eastern-most units last turn to help defend along the Rhone River). The Germans take Strasbourg and then Dijon. A German panzer unit in the south eliminates a French unit and is in Vichy before the end of the turn. Three French cities fall before the German army and it starts to look really bad for France.  During the western faction's