A Boy Named Dug

TK - Fall '40 through Summer '41

2012-01-29T21:01:00.000-08:00

Just a quick update on my VASSAL game of Axis Empires: Totaler Krieg! It's been a hard slog through Poland, but I finally took Warsaw in the middle of the summer. More like WW1 than WW2 in many ways. The good news is that Poland is now a conquered country and Eric no longer gets the benefit of those units. On the down side, I still need to garrison cities.

I chose not to go to Total War for a few reasons, but the main ones were a) bringing in the Americans, b) bringing in the Russian Emergency Mobilization units (a good choice as it turned out - Eric has maxed out his forces at long last, which I *think* is good). Plus a deteriorating Delay Box situation. So I went with Operation Marita for the summer, which was enough for me to take Warsaw. Now the question is whether I go for making the Poles an ally, or do I try to bring in Hungary or Rumania? A tough call. Occupation isn't that bad, especially as the Poles are not really able to come in in force right away anyway, but I'm still one hex away from the historical Nazi-Soviet Pact division line and it will take a while to push the Soviets out.

I brought in the Italians on the Axis side as well, right before Chuck attempted to Demand Cyrenaica. At the same time, he's got a pretty big army brewing down there, and one of the drawbacks of not being at Total War is I don't get the Afrika Korps units yet. At least I have two steps coming in per season with the Minors.

Of course, I am not someone who can let well enough alone. Hence Finland and Poland going Soviet early, which has been a bit of a problem. At the same time, I'm very interested to see what can happen in this game, so for my second Treaty attempt of the fall, I went for Greece. I got it, but also Bulgaria coming in for the Soviets. At least I have the Western Allied Strategic Hex in Athens with no German blood shed, and I'll be going to +4 on the strategic cities, with Minsk and Kiev in sight. Maybe. There are a lot of Russians squeezed into a very small front right now, but a lot of people don't have much in the way of card plays. Exciting.

As we stand, I have a plan for the coming year and it will be fun to see how it plays out.

As Eric has already said, "I love this game."

Totaler Krieg - The Campaign Begins

2012-01-20T22:43:00.000-08:00

Eric, Chuck, and myself got together last Sunday to start playing our campaign game of the new edition of Totaler Krieg!. Eric and I had previously played the Fall of France scenario to help get the rules under our belts, and I'd gone through the "How To Learn This Game" steps in the Scenario Book.

Let me be clear - even if you're an experienced wargamer, unless you've played this game before you want to go through the process they describe. As I've said in earlier posts, the ruleset is very good for the most part, but there are some processes that span several sections of the rules and there is not always good cross-referencing. However, once you've learned the game they are *excellent* for a reference source.

I've also discussed why I like this game in an earlier post. I'll just say that playing the campaign game has not changed my thinking at all.

I took the Axis in this game, as everyone felt I had the most experience having tried running through the Pre-War period as a solitaire exercise to see what sorts of things happen and what options the different factions have. There is an Option Card Strategy Guide on the back of each player's play aid, but it's one thing to read a few sentences and another to go through the process. Chuck took the Western Allies (which I will call the Wallies, despite the fact that the designers aren't fond of that term), and Eric took the Soviets.

I started the game fairly historically, although my intent was to activate Poland as an Axis Minor country and head East First just to be different. I was very glad I'd run through the pre-war, as you make a few long-term decisions during this portion of the game, and there are some subtleties that you wont get any other way. I began by Supporting the Nationalists in Spain, which gives me a roll on the table of the option card. Things started going the Germans way immediately as I reduced a Republican Stronghold. We went with the historical option and just gave the Republican Control marker to the Soviets. However, the marker switched sides a couple of times, usually just as Eric or Chuck was about to play a Support Republicans card, and I was able to turn Spain Fascist within a year with no breakaway countries.

It was the first Wallie turn, however, that was the fun one. Chuck rolled on his option card table and it resulted in me getting to roll on the Minor Political Event table. For those of you that know this table, you know that it's kind of an Anything Can Happen Day. This particular day, Poland and the Baltics had a Border War, with Poland going to the Soviets. So much for my initial plan. And the Baltics! Hooray! They have one Res unit!

Things went pretty historically, at least for me, through 1938. Austria fell to the Anschluss, and rearmament and mobilization went along well too. Eric went with a more cooperative approach with his neighbors, partly because he already had Poland, and managed to get the Finns as well when I again rolled on that damned table. Because I wanted to see what would happen. I took the Czechs as well. He was hoping to get French-Russian Entente out, but I was ready with the Nazi-Soviet Pact.

I went for Demanding Switzerland at the beginning of 1939, since the Wallies hadn't made any Guarantees, so even when they resisted I was able to win a Military Victory. Only drawback - I couldn't get the free Influence on a country since no one was at War yet when all of the Outbreak of War conditional units came out because of the Mil Victory. It did make the Wallies a little nervous to have their Maginot Line flanked. I picked Switzerland because nothing else was legal or worthwhile (who cares about Denmark - you get that almost for free along with Norway), and it simply paid off.

I finally played 6a in early 1940 in order to get to Limited War with the Wallies. It was really the only chance I had. Guarantees had come too late to help them, and I was able to trigger Case Yellow in mid-1940, right on schedule. What wasn't on schedule was taking Denmark-Norway, which I did in the Autumn. The problem was that now that Finland was a Soviet Minor, Norway had a 50/50 shot at becoming anyone's Minor, and that country was the Soviets. Suddenly, with a ton of Soviets in Poland and me just getting my units back from France, I was at war with everyone. Wow.

As I type, we are finishing up 1940. I have made a little headway into Poland, but it's tough without air or Blitz markers. As Chuck was planning to Demand Cyrenaica, I brought in the Italians with Treaty (and with a +1, next up is Hungary who also has a +1 Influence marker). Posen and Krakow have fallen, and Warsaw is sitting waiting for my next turn or two to fall. Once that happens, and if Hungary comes in, Russia may need to fall back to it's historical boundaries and I have to decide if I want Poland to become a Puppet Government or not after it falls. The only drawback is that I have to consider whether or not Occupation will be an issue, as I don't have the benefit of having multi-step units in a friendly minor, at least not without a serious cost, and why bother bringing in Poland if I can't just drive through it when I want to? The other option is aggressive Treaties and thinking about the rest of the Balkans. Yugoslavia is only useful if I really want Italy in the game in Russia, and the only thing worth considering besides it is Athens. Crete is too far away from anything to be a threat. Of course, a certain amount of peace means that I can start to build up if the Italian War Economy kicks into gear. I already have the +1 for Axis Minors.

Perhaps it will be time to try to steal land from the Russians through the Anti-Comintern Pact, which looks interesting. We are so far away from history at this point that I can't say what will happen at all, but it's sure been a fun ride so far.

I will continue to give updates, probably on an annual basis, but perhaps seasonal. I'll throw in some screen shots as well from time to time, probably should have done that here, although only Poland is really interesting at all right now.

I'll say one thing - this game is everything I was hoping it would be. A somewhat variable start position, combined with some major wackiness on the diplomacy front, and a real feel that you are in control of pretty much your country and not a lot else, at least for the Axis. My only disappointment is that we have shifted to VASSAL after a great 7 hour starting session, and I am making lots of noob errors (like how I set up in Libya, which I was fortunate to figure out before Chuck took his turn - things like you don't have an Open Port in a port in a dependent unless it's got a friendly unit there). That said, there's a lot to think about, and it's nice to be able to take my time to do that. I sure hope Chuck and Eric are enjoying the game as much as I am.

On to 1941. Will I invoke Barbarossa in the summer? Mwahaha...

WoW. Done.

2012-01-19T14:25:00.000-08:00

Yup, I'm done. After something like six years of paying a monthly fee, I've finally quit playing WoW.

In truth, I more or less stopped playing not long after Cataclysm came out, mostly because the game suddenly seemed very easy but partly because the novelty of the quest system had worn off. When you don't take the time to read quest details that you've never been on before, you know it's a grind.

I actually stopped the credit card payments back in October, right after we needed to make some financial concessions to the economy, but I stopped payment on the 22nd and the three-month payment had gone through on the 19th.

Today is January 19th, three months later.

I'm sorry to say I did not quite get my first character, Leonadril, my Assassination Rogue Gnome, to level 85. He's at the Twilight Highlands, hovering in the air in his Turbo-Charged Helicopter Thingie, trapped about 2/3rds of the way to the final level. He has about 4000 gold, but I'm a terrible entrepreneur and never did learn to work the farming/auction house part of the game to my benefit. '

The only other character I really spent significant time on is Amahiah, a female Feral Druid Tauren. She's at level 80, and to be honest I'm not quite sure where she's at. I never got her to any of the new areas.

In the course of the last six years, I think I tried every race and every class, although nowhere near every combination. At one point in the early days, I think I had four alts going at once to better allow my characters to rest. At the end, I don't think I *ever* rested with Leonadril, and he was getting 200% for critters the whole time. Maybe I'd saved up several months worth when he was inactive.

I played with guilds for a short time. The first one was fine, but there were a couple of people that just wouldn't shut up. When we moved down to Wilsonville and spent almost all of our free time trying to fix things in the house, I didn't play for a month and that guild kicked me out. I did not try to get back in, as they didn't ask me what I was up to and if everything was OK.

The other guild(s) I played in were a cross-faction guild that had an Alliance and a Horde side. The Alliance side broke off, and kicked me out after I'd stopped playing for a while when my mother had so much trouble 18 months ago. They were nice enough, but wanted to do heroic raids and I wasn't geared for it. I did contribute more than I took from the bank, and even contributed 200 gold (which was a lot for me at the time, saving up as I was for a cycle, which I eventually got) toward one of the leaders for a birthday present. Again, no notification, which kind of annoyed me, especially as they knew I went back and for with two different characters for long periods of time.

I had more luck with the Horde side, going on three or four dungeon runs with them. Unfortunately, at the time I had an extension in my system for DivX that was making ventrilo useless, at least for me talking, and dungeons are no fun if you can't make jokes that people can hear. I suspect that Amahiah is still part of that guild as we speak, but I haven't touched that alt for nearly a year.

There was a time early on when WoW absorbed much of my life. I originally started playing to have an avenue of communication with my daughter, who I ended up playing with for one session. When I said that I'd been waiting for that moment for some time and was very happy, she freaked out and we were never on at the same time again. Kind of sums up my experiences with my daughter, I'm afraid.

In the end, I was good for about two hours. I love exploration games where you go on to the next thing and see what's there and kill it, but there was so little differentiation between critters in the end (at least in terms of how I went about killing them) that every quest became a grind. When I heard that the next expansion was going to feature a new race of Kung Fu Pandas, I knew that the time had come, and it didn't take much for me to pull the plug.

At this point, I've had no luck in my handful of attempts to find a replacement MMORPG, and I really have no interest in doing so, even when my discretionary budget rises again at some point. The iPad has introduced me to micro-gaming with games like Ascension, and the ability to play a game within 10 or 15 minutes to completion is more in line with my mindset these days. WoW was a big part of my life for a few years, arguably too big a part of my life, but like all things it has run it's course. I suspect at some point I'll get a little nostalgic and pay for a month to get Leonadril out of Airline Hell and finish his storyline off, but it will be a while.

I'm just glad WoW wasn't around when I was in college. I would never have graduated, like many others of that age who got into it. I don't even want to think of what I'd have run into That said, as addictions go this one was an awful lot of fun.

My 2012 Gaming Resolutions

2011-12-30T12:22:00.000-08:00

Rather than lay these out here, I'd ask people to refer to the Geeklist I've created for this purpose. I'm asking for a certain amount of feedback from those who follow my musings.

2011, Highs and Lows

2011-12-25T17:42:00.000-08:00

So what were the high points and low points of 2011 for me? We were always supposed to start with a high point in my high school drama class, so I'll start there:

+ Game Cons/Retreats this year were particularly great, from Salishan in January to GameStorm in March, to WBC West in May, to the Sunriver Euro Retreat in September, to BottosCon in November, to Salishan again in December. All good times spent with good people.

- Conversely, I seemed to attract the crazy on BoardGameGeek this year. For some reason I expect gamers to be more logical, but in fact they seem to be more intent on proving how much smarter they are than the rest of us, leading to some really incredible exchanges. While I ran into some doozies, the one that had to amaze me the most was the one noting that I'd put over 100 titles up for grabs in the Jack Vasel Memorial Fund auction in November, which somehow devolved into people bitching about fundraising auctions in general and bundling of games in particular. As Matt Monin said when he shut the discussion down, "Shutting this down because..."

+ I made some new friends this year: Tripp, Jim, Rob, Art, Eric H, and probably a few more that I'm forgetting. I keep saying it, but it's still true - it's all about who you play with.

-/+ This year more than any other got me to start to really see that I don't need to buy 100 games a year. This will be a very hard habit to break, but I've already started by paring my wargame pre-order list down to something like five games total, of which two should be shipped within a few weeks. I've also realized that I don't need to get every expansion for some games, so Dominion, Thunderstone, and Combat Commander are about as complete as they're going to get, at least for now. I also don't need to get games just to see how they work.

+ Some wargames made a big impression on me this year: Labyrinth, Axis Empires: Totaler Krieg, Fighting Formations, Nightfighter, Breakthrough: Cambrai, Up Front (not new but newish to me), PQ-17, ASL, and No Retreat! All of these are games I will continue to play. A few titles continue to impress: the Fleet series, Here I Stand,

- Some wargames made a negative impression on me, some that were kind of surprising.

A Few Acres of Snow (arguably not a wargame, this one left me wondering what the hype was about),
the East Front Series (incredible detail and a huge map for a relatively small number of combat rolls and accordingly an unfortunately increasing likelihood of the dice screwing you hard and early),
Fields of Fire (new rules came out that did little to address the issues I'd brought up repeatedly - what a pyrotechnic can do and how to fill out your mission sheet, among others)

While I'm quite fond of all of the wargames I mention above, I have to give the nod for Best New Wargame to Axis Empires: Totaler Krieg. I've gone into some depth about why I think this is the grand strategic WW2 game for me in an earlier post, and while it is in some ways a reprint at the same time quite a bit has been changed in the game. I'm really looking forward to exploring this game's depths over the coming year, whether solitaire (a sure-fire way of telling if a game grabs me or not) or face-to-face.

Honorable mention goes to Fighting Formations, which has such a novel engine under the hood. I'm not sure it's been as enthusiastically embraced by wargamers as, say, Combat Commander, and it's a much more focused set of scenarios, but there's no question it is a breakout design.

+ Looking at the multiplayer strategy bracket, here are the plusses:

Mage Knight, the Board Game (really deep strategy game based on the collectable figure market game that has since been discontinued. Vlaada Chvatil does it again.)
Dominant Species (came out in late 2010, but this game may be my favorite multiplayer strategy game),
Gears of War (best GM-less "dungeon crawl" game out there, although not as fun solitaire as with others),
Sid Meier's Civilization came out very late last year and should be included in this category. It's a great translation of the computer game, which is hilarious since it originally started as a board game that became a computer game. We've all been waiting for a good implementation for a long time.

- There were some disappointments as well in this category - Urban Sprawl looked to have promise after the first play, but a second play with fewer people saw my attention waning and it's unlikely to see more table time for me. Horus Heresy (played Jesse's copy) was fun but the game seemed a bit too limited in replay value to me and I am now very leery of big box games. I finally got Mansions of Madness on the table as well, and found it to be a hard game to get to love for a variety of reasons, but primarily because you're either going to be the Keeper or an Investigator when you play, and you probably won't get to switch sides because you need to know the scenario very well long before you start playing it. That and the fiasco with the expansion components, where one scenario has tiles that are on both sides of one piece. Whoops.

Giving out a best of for this category is tough - all three of the great games are just that, great games. All bring novel approaches to game play to the table. I'm going to give the Best New Multiplayer Strategy Game award, by the thinnest of margins, to Mage Knight because of the range of scenarios, it's entertaining solitaire version, and the great bits (painted characters!) It almost lost on length and opacity of the ruleset, but I think this will be a go-to long game at cons and retreats over the coming years.

+ By far the biggest category is for Euros. There are some great new games out there this year, especially in the deck-building area where I didn't expect such great choices as Rune Age or Eminent Domain. 7 Wonders continues to impress, especially scaling for different numbers of players. Spectral Rails was a hit with me too. I liked Blood Bowl: Team Manager as well, although I think this needs to be a four-player game.

- And of course, a few were duds. Elder Sign completely struck out as a solitaire game, and even the iOS app is missing enough of the replayability elements for me to be wary of purchasing it. Airlines: Europe took the classic Clippers and turned it into a math exercise. Innovation has been a huge hit with my group, but I continue to wonder what the fuss is about - a lot of playing and jockeying that in the end seems to be about who knows what other cards are in the deck, and there are a lot of cards.

This one is particularly tough because nothing really jumped out at me or broke ground. Except one game that is so different that I'm giving the Best New Euro Game award to it: Ascending Empires. Nothing else gives a real-time feel (thanks to the micro-turns), nothing else has a physical game element (the flicking to move starships), and the tech tree gives the game valuable replayability. The only downside is that the board tends to warp and you need to do some work with plexi, washers, and rubber feet if you want the game to avoid the "subspace crevasses" that my board turned into over a few days in September in a fairly dry climate, even in the big ziplock bag.

I have a few other awards to give:

Best Event Host goes to Rob Bottos. Chris Brooks came so close, and in fact I had more fun at Chris' retreat than I may have had ever, but Rob puts on his show in a hotel and one that seems to have more than it's share of excitement - this year it was a salsa party next door that made my teeth hurt. And I play in a band. I know Chris will understand.

Best Event goes to the Salishan Game Retreat, hosted by Chris. See my previous post for details, but it was awesome.

Best Expansion goes to Ticket To Ride: Asia. Two new maps, a new Mountain mechanism for the "normal" side and a very cool six-player team game on the other. Biggest problem is that I need my original TtR box for the pieces and the 1910 set for the train cards (unless I want to shuffle 110 teeny tiny train cards). Three plays in three days, all great fun. Combat Commander: Resistance was a close second, but oh those "missing" Molotovs...

Biggest Disappointment goes to A Few Acres of Snow. I was very excited to give this a shot, but the reality left me happy to see the game end and go on to something else. I may try again someday, but frankly I feel like Martin Wallace has been trying a little too hard since the whole Steam debacle.

Biggest Kerfuffle goes to Quarriors for the incredible amount of hate that game generated online. A very close Honorable Mention goes to Eminent Domain for taking so long to come out, the publisher essentially telling the Kickstarters who had supported publication that their "special" game element was actually going out to a lot more people than them. Had they not, at the last minute, found a way to give people something unique this would have won easily.

Biggest Dick goes to... The Box. 'Nuff said.

And that's that.

2011 In Review: Games Played

2011-12-24T23:46:00.000-08:00

I've discussed what I purchased in 2011, now it's time to see what I played. I've always liked Dave's "Nickel and Dime" list, which is a convenient way to group games. However, I think there's some value in picking numbers other than 10 and 5. In my case a "dime" is five or more plays, a "nickel" is three or four.

I should also note that I am using data from the Geek (again), as that's where I've logged the data. However, I was a bit inconsistent in how I did this - an "incomplete" game may have meant I was playing the game over several sessions, which is misleading as the game was not incomplete at all. Also, I started the year using the expansion name of the game I was using, but I have decided that I will log the game in 2012 under the core game title and note the difference in the comments section. This will give me a better sense of the games I'm playing.

Only one game saw more than ten plays, and that was Dominion. Almost all of them happened at my family's Sunriver vacation over the summer, when Alex and I (and our niece Alexis) played this frequently. I'm finding that what events I attended had more to do with what games got played than a lot of other things. The other games that got played a lot over that week were the Lord of the Rings LCG and Nightfighter and in fact almost all of my LotR games and all of the Nightfighter games got played over that week.

Some games were solitaire or had a solitaire version and I might have played the game repeatedly to try to "grok" it better or because the game was pissing me off. Elder Sign is an example of both, and I'd given up on it completely as a solitaire game and it was headed for the sale pile before I played multiplayer and enjoyed it much more. Soviet Dawn, on the other hand, saw me playing the game seven times, but all of them happened in about a two hour period when I was losing the game six or seven cards in over and over, and I kept playing because I wanted to get to at least the second deck. Thunderstone I played several times with the new expansions solitaire just to get a sense of the game.

Otherwise, there are a lot of wargames in the Dime section because, as noted, they were played over several sessions. The exceptions were Up Front (which I played in a tournament in November), Axis Empires: Totaler Krieg (which were small scenarios to learn the game), Fighting Formations, and Gears of War.

Other games that saw repeated play were 7 Wonders, Labyrinth (some solo, some not), Ascension (not counting the over 600 games I've played since this iPad app came out - it's evil), and Magic: The Gathering (because of the tournament at Salishan). Various Combat Commander games came out as well, and this is definitely the wargame I played the most over the year.

On to the Nickels!

These games, in comparison, were mostly real games: no incomplete sessions for one game or test games. These tended to be non-wargames, but there were a few: No Retreat!, Here I Stand, Nightfighter, and PQ-17. The euros were Quarriors, Eminent Domain, Mage Knight, Rune Age, Dominant Species, London, Power Grid, Sticheln, and the Ticket to Ride Asia maps.

Beyond that, there were quite a few other games played in the 1-2 game range. In fact, I played over 120 different titles. I don't quite have the gumption to try to figure out how many games total, but it was well over 300, and that doesn't include electronic versions unless it was a wargame (so no Race for the Galaxy, no Ascension, no Ticket to Ride on the Mac or the iPad). That's a healthy number although I'm not sure it's a healthy variety.

One friend of mine, a wargamer, comments to me that he's amazed I can keep the rules for all of these games in my head. Of course that's silly, I can't do that. What I can do is remember that there are various types of mechanisms and remember, to a point, what games include what mechanisms and how they work in that game. That said, I rely heavily on the rules in most games and while there are a few that I know very well indeed, most of the time I need to doublecheck something in any game I play.

As a dude, I know that different = attractive. At the same time, in some ways I am a creature of habit. For example, I eat Frosted Mini Wheats for breakfast nearly every day, but I like eating completely different types of food for lunch and dinner (although I don't mind leftovers). Eating, say, pizza (other than the health issues) for dinner every day would bore me silly after a couple of days. OK, maybe that's the wrong example, but it's generally true.

With games, there are some that have attracted my full attention (Totaler Krieg, Up Front, Combat Commander, PQ-17, Fighting Formations, Labyrinth, No Retreat! in the wargame arena) and some that I enjoy but simply require the right time and place and players. In the end, I guess I really like variety and I really like new and shiny, but in the end I think it comes down mostly to who you play with.

I will discuss the highlights and lowlights as well as my own Favorite Games in the next entry.

2011 Gaming In Review

2011-12-24T10:05:00.000-08:00

Before I finish deciding on my 2012 Gaming Resolutions, I thought it would be cool to look back on 2011's gaming and see what sort of interesting conclusions I could draw, independent of my 2011 Gaming Resolutions. This is the advantage of logging your plays and your collection, whether on the 'Geek or in some other fashion.

This year I added quite a few games to the collection, selling off perhaps twice as many. It's a little difficult to get a good accounting as I was still entering quite a few games that were either in the closet or that simply hadn't been counted into the database the year before for one reason or another.

Here is a list of the non-wargames I purchased (non-expansion) since last January, roughly in the order of their acquisition:

Merchants & Marauders
Cyclades
Eminent Domain (via Kickstarter)
Phoenicia
Wealth of Nations
London
D&D: Wrath of Ashardalon
Nightfall
Isla Dorada
Mansions of Madness
Spectral Rails
Junta: Viva el Presidente!
Airlines: Europe
Cargo Noir
TZAAR
Space Hulk: Death Angel TCG)
Star Trek: Expeditions
Ascending Empires
Quarriors
Conquest of Planet Earth
Source of the Nile (used)
Rune Age
Elder Sign
Gears of War
Blood Bowl: Team Manager
Urban Sprawl
The Ares Project
Mage Knight: The Board Game
Poseidon's Kingdom
Powerboats (used)

Total: 30

Here is a list of the non-wargame expansions I purchased since last January:

Thunderstone Promo Cards
BStar G: Exodus
Thunderstone: Dragonspire
Thunderstone: Thornwood Siege
Nightfall: Martial Law

Resident Evil: Alliance

Many LotR:LCG expansions

Many Warhammer: Invasion expansions

Wealth of Nations: War Clouds

7 Wonders: Leaders and Manniken Pis

Ascension: Rat King and Return of the Fallen

Power Grid: Russia and Japan map

Age of Steam: Secret Blueprints 1&2

Railways of the World: Event Deck

Railways of the World TCG expansion

Talisman: The Dragon expansion

Cosmic Encounter: Cosmic Conflict

Ticket to Ride: Asia

Total: 15 (not counting small expansions - 60 cards or less)

Here is a list of the wargames I purchased (non-magazine, non-expansion) since last January:

Steel Wolves
Decision Folio Series (6 titles)
We Must Tell The Emperor
Levee en Masse
Drive on Stalingrad
Karelia '44
Case Yellow, 1940
Nightfighter
Guderian's Blitzkrieg II
No Retreat! (GMT version)
Proud Monster Deluxe
Axis Empires: Totaler Krieg
Breakthrough: Cambrai
Iron Tide: Panzers in the Ardennes
Fighting Formations: GD
Bloody Kasserine (used)

Total: 21

Here is a list of the magazine wargames and expansions I purchased since last January:

IJN (for Silent War)
Partizan
ASLSK Expansion Pack #1
Various VPG expansions
Arriba Espana
Russian Civil War 1918-1922
The South Seas Campaign
The Hardest Days
The American Revolution: Decision in North America
Combat Commander: Resistance
For King and Country (ASL Module)

Total Magazines: 6
Total expansions: 4 (not counting VPG expansions)

Total non-expansions purchased: 50
Total expansions: 20

What do I derive from these numbers? A few things:

I have considerable discretionary income;
I preorder a lot of wargames, but only seven this year were from pre-orders, this is a smaller number than I expected;
I played 21 of the 30 non-wargames purchased this year, meaning the copy I purchased;
I played 9 of the 21 non-wargames I purchased, at least to the point of reading the rules, setting up the game, and pushing counters around. 7 of those were played to completion.
I sold more games this year than I bought, but I still am out of room for new games!

I've changed a few things in my buying habits: most of my preorders have been cancelled pending seeing if the game is any good. I'd gotten in the habit of just ordering everything and that was not working well - too many games that were DOA and too many that I really didn't have an interest in the subject matter. I now have something like four or five games total on preorder, and two of those will arrive in the next month or two.

I'm also learning that the vast majority of magazine games are terrible. There are occasional gems, but for the most part they are intellectual exercises for the designer and the reader, often relatively unsupported and unplaytested. I will not be picking these up in the future.

I am done collecting Warhammer: Invasion cards. Three full cycles and three full expansions to the set are more than I am using now. I will continue with one or two more cycles of LotR and see if it gets any play with me. I also have enough Combat Commander, Thunderstone, Dominion, Talisman, and many other system games, to last me for quite a while. I'd already jettisoned several entire lines of games during the year (Great Battles of History, Panzer Grenadier, Some War At Sea, etc), so it's good to realize that inertia is not a good reason for buying a game.

While there were some disappointments in all categories, I did not sell anything I purchased this year. For some reason that comforts me to some extent. On the other hand, there were some real winners - this was, overall, a very good year for games

For financial reasons, 2012 will be a year of relatively few purchases for me. My goal is to keep total purchases under 20 games, including expansions, that come in a medium or larger box (Return of the Fallen barely makes this cut), and another 20 expansions that come in a small box (like the LotR:LCG expansions). The new Civilization expansion is a borderline case, and might go on either side of the cut. I realize that for many people, 20 new games a year would be a huge number, sorry about that: don't hate me because I'm pretty!

Enough for now. I will continue in the next post discussing the games I played, and follow that up with my favorites (and duds) of 2011. At that point I should be ready with my 2012 resolutions, just in time for the new year!

Happy Holidays to all of my readers, may you get exactly the right games under your tree (or menorah, or in your mailbox, or at your FLGS).

Salishan Gaming, Saturday through Sunday

2011-12-16T15:15:00.000-08:00

The big game on Saturday was an 18xx game that involved Sardinia. They can make an 18xx game that takes place nearly anywhere, I guess. I was not involved, but it did tie up half of the group for nearly the entire day - I believe they finished around dinner time. I'm sure someone will disabuse me of this idea, but it sure seemed like they were at it for a long time to me.

My first game was a teaching game of Eminent Domain with Ken and KC. I find that this game tends to be tricky to learn for even the most experienced gamer, in no small part because we tend to ignore play aids and information on cards. I'm finding that the best way to teach is to focus on text for actions and symbols for roles. I also leave out advanced techs, which does not show the game off to it's fullest potential, but at the same time I think that it just becomes more confusing when they are there. I do leave in the first level techs. I believe that I came in second, as you don't get Brooks Bucks for anything but first or last.

Next up, I got in a five player game on the TtR Asia "Legendary" board, which was a lot of fun - you have Mountain Passes that require you to "burn" one of your trains for two points. Despite making a lot of mountain pass routes (and thus having a lot of my trains tied up off-map) I came very close to taking longest route and within 10 or 15 points of winning the game. Five people on any map is a tense experience, but I managed to get all of my routes completed. More of a traditional experience compared with the Team Asia side of the mapboard, but a nice addition and with some fun cities to pronounce: Dacca-dacca-dacca-dacca!

At this point, the four non-18xx'ers were going to play Agricola, which I am not interested in playing with five given my low experience level with the game, so I decided to tackle the rules (in extremely small print) for Mage Knight: The Board Game. After a couple of hours, KC and Jeff allowed me to attempt teaching the game (which I did poorly, but in my defense you must play this game to teach it and I did not get that far). We got through the first round (the Day turn) and by then it was time for dinner and then the evening activities. I did learn quite a bit about efficient deck play, however, that I put to good use in teaching the game to Alex, Dan, and Matt G the following Tuesday. I will post a separate entry on this game in the near future, but suffice it to say that it may be my favorite long multiplayer game, blending elements of roleplaying games (increasing abilities as you progress in experience), multiplayer strategy (lots of resource management in terms of cards) and wargaming (complexity level and numbers of systems). While there is a deckbuilding element, at the same time it is nothing like most games bearing that descriptor - you build your deck very slowly, accelerating as the game progresses but still very slowly. Thank goodness I had my iPad to be able to read the text in a font size more appropriate for anyone over the age of 15.

We ended Saturday with two large scale events - a Magic sealed deck/booster tournament and an auction for a set of games, using the Brooks Bucks as currency.

I may have been the last white middle-class male of my age group to have actually played Magic in card form. I have played the demo for Duel of the Planeswalkers on my PS3, but I did not buy the game and have never played the physical version, although I've probably been given a couple of hundred cards in boosters or starter packs over the years. Being tossed into a booster draft, I did what any sensible person who had drunk too much for three days in a row would do - I picked the color I had the most of in the starter deck (green), and went for that color exclusively with the idea of having some Blue cards to fill out the deck if necessary. At the end, I had enough Green to have a monochromatic deck, and I did fairly well with it. My first game with Matt saw him struggling to get any Land cards while I stomped all over him (our second non-counting game was exactly the opposite). I went on to play KC in the second round, this time narrowly losing a very close game where I came very close to wiping him out. Hilariously, there was a very strong Red card, some sort of dragon, that I had in the booster draft at one point and considered keeping it because it seemed so strong, but instead passed it to KC, who used it to kill me in our game. Ha ha! My biggest problem in that game was that I was getting almost nothing *but* Land cards (I had 15 in my 40 card deck, probably one or two too many, but this was still a statistical outlier). We played a second hand, again non-counting, where the same pattern more or less played out and KC looked to be unstoppable right up until I unleashed a Hurricane that nearly killed me but did kill him.

My final game was against Jeff, and in many ways it was the most satisfying. He had a White deck with (I think) green as a secondary color, and we were working hard to knock each other down. I was running out of cards after having an artifact that allowed me to draw extra cards with four mana (and again, I had lots of mana available). As we were getting close to the end of my deck, I forgot that I would need creatures to block if I wanted to survive and Jeff took my out, but I almost certainly would have lost anyway. KC took the tournament and I gave my cards, most of them vintage and a few apparently valuable, back to Chris as he'd supplied every card we used. This was much more fun than I'd expected, and there were many Magic games going on for the rest of the weekend. This has inspired me to consider a WoW Raid deck game again at some point (we tried this once, but it was a fail as I just wasn't as prepared to teach this game as I needed to be).

One interesting thing I noted over the course of the evening - Being the "outsider" when it came to Magic (although KC insists my play was quite good, I think a bit too generously), it was enlightening to hear people discussing different cards and effects about something I had no experience with at all. At one point, I realized that when I talk about gaming, most people have the same experience I did when it came to hearing Magic discussions. Usually you experience this with wildly different disciplines or hobbies, but in this case Magic is a big part of gaming culture and to hear something discussed that is gaming-related that had so little context surrounding it (what's a Dithering Snake Dancer - you aren't going to know from the title) was very odd. Just an observation, I make no judgements whatsoever about the CCG community at large and the Magic community specifically.

That left the auction, which seemed to consist of everyone other than Jeff hanging onto their BB as though they were something other than scrap paper. I ended up with several games - Gift Trap, Quartto, some card game that uses letters on the cards to create a variety of word games, and Drunter & Drueber. We also learned what all of the secret BB awards were, most of the ones not awarded being about complaining about various things. I guess that's a good thing - most of the positive awards were handed out.

I should note that while waiting for the auction, we also learned that I had missed winning the iOS Ascension tournament to Greg by five points. I assume, given that most of my five games averaged over 70 points, that this was effectively a tie when considered statistically. That's my story and I'm sticking with it.

Sunday was short, with mostly Magic games going on, plus a rematch of Eminent Domain with the full game (I won on a tech strategy, but KC and Ken, with planet and influence strategies, respectively, were within a couple of points. This game is perhaps the deepest of the deckbuilding genre in terms of long-term play, and I recommend it so long as you have gamers involved. We also finally tried out Team Asia TtR with six, Matt R (who is not fond of the series, but like this one a lot) as my partner as we sailed to a victory. This may become my favorite six-player game, although Medici will be a close second at worst.

At that point it was time to pack up and head home. Interestingly, aside from one point on Friday where I realized that we were only about halfway into the weekend, and another point where Greg suggested on Saturday that we all agree that it was really Friday, I did very well at living within the moment rather than being sad that the weekend was drawing to a close. I attribute this to both the alcohol and my midnight excursions to the beach to enjoy the sounds of the surf (it was largely clear, but too bright of a moon to have done any stargazing, unfortunately). This is kind of a big deal for me, learning to improve my experience on a conscious basis, and then to have it become an automatic response. While in the context of gaming it may seem like a minor accomplishment, on a larger scale (specifically regarding my hypertension issues) this may be the key to improving my life in significant ways.

Huge thanks to Chris for hosting a bunch of internet whiners (you can't expect good internet service when you're out about a mile on a sand spit) with good humor in what is a fairly tight space for 10 people. I really enjoyed the various metagames we played over the course of the weekend, although I will not even try to recreate them at Sunriver as I can't imagine I could do nearly as fantastic a job as Chris did. I also enjoyed discovering the Andy Samburg/Justin Timberlake SNL Digital Shorts (D*ck In A Box et al), which produced much hilarity for me on Saturday night if not for everyone else. Thanks also to everyone attending for making the experience so much fun. It's nice to have such great gaming partners and friends.

Considering Gaming Resolutions

2011-12-16T14:32:00.000-08:00

It's almost the new year, at least for everyone using Common Era reckoning based on the solar astronomical calendar, and so time for me to both consider how well my gaming resolutions for 2011 came out as well as come up with some good resolutions for next year.

I'm starting to think about next year's resolutions, but I'd like to get suggestions (serious ones, please) about what resolutions to shoot for next year.

First, though, a recap of how my resolutions for 2011 went and what I learned from the experience.

Learn and play ASLSK/ASL. This went better than I suspected, but worse than I hoped. This may be a standard refrain for all of my resolutions! Thanks to my good friend Ken I got in two ASLSK scenarios, all of which involved small-arms, no ordnance, and no vehicles. This was by design. Because Ken is an old ASL hand, we mostly relied on his understanding of the game for the rules rather than using the ASLSK rules per se. That said, I enjoy the game but I need to decide if I want this to be a focal point in the future. I am certainly incapable of teaching this game to others at this point (a rarity for me), so it will be difficult to enlist people within my existing circle to play against unless they are already familiar with the system, so it will probably remain an occasional game I play unless I decide to make it my "lifestyle" game. I consider this goal a measured success.
Attending an out of state gaming convention. This was an unqualified success - I attended BottosCon 2011 just south of Vancouver, B.C., and had a wonderful time, even meeting a couple of people (including Rob) that have been invited to our annual WBC West nanocon in late spring. Surprise high point was, as long time readers know, my first exposure to Fortress America! I plan to attend this again in 2012, in no small part because Rob does such a great job of building community.
iOS Game Development. I consider myself to be a good programmer, at least based on the limited coding I've done over the years, most of it in the 80's/90's. With iOS coding, I ran into a bit of a problem - to code for iOS, I need to know Objective-C or Java (which I don't, although I know C and some C++), and I also need to know the XCode environment. Apparently all at once. I'm taking advantage of the iTunesU Stanford classes on iOS coding, but it moves along quickly and assumes a good amount of object-oriented coding knowledge that I don't really have, although the concept is right up my alley - I considered my coding strengths to be in data types, and with OOP the entire process is about setting up data types and how you can interact with them. This will continue on into 2012, but it's slow going with some big gumption traps in the early portion. Definitely a failure although with some small success, but I expected as much.
Classic Euros on the Table. A success, with only one session all year that didn't have at least one "classic" euro played (as defined by me), and that was when we had nearly 10 people show up to game over the summer. With one session left this year, I'm declaring this a complete success that was not only met but accomplished exactly what I wanted it to do - give me a chance to revisit some great games I haven't played in a while.
Long Term Study of WW2. My intent was to start learning more about all of WW2 chronologically, including gaming something about that period. I actually finished a fairly interesting book on the Spanish Civil War, although one that was clearly intended for the classroom, and gamed a bit on the subject with GMT's Spanish Civil War, Firefight/Decision's Arriba Espana, and MMP's Guadalajara. AE seemed like a game that was SCW themed more than a simulation, TSCW was very interesting but required a lot of tracking of what hex belonged to which side, and Guadalajara had some systemic issues because of the operational lines dictated between the Italians and Spanish (there wasn't much reason for the Republicans to fight the Spanish as there were no objectives on that side of the line). This is not to say that the games weren't good, or that I wasn't informed by setting them up and whatever small amount of play I devoted to them, just that this is a difficult goal to do on your own. Much better to have a small group, even one other person, with whom you can discuss what you've learned and game with. Solitaire gaming continues to be a difficult thing for me to sustain as I'd much rather play against a live opponent. While I will continue to work my way through a reading study, the game component is just not likely for me to try to continue. It's not like I own any games that involve Poland anyway. A failure with some elements of success, but it was also a very experimental goal.
Play A Fleet Game Multiplayer. This one was a complete success, played out at WBC West in May 2011 with Chuck, Alex, and Matt. We played a largish (but not full-rules) scenario that took us the better part of the day, and both sides learned a lot. Next year we hope to get the Indo-Pakistani War scenario from 5th Fleet on the table, perhaps with up to six players. I still think a full-scale campaign game is more than we can take on, but this makes for an excellent multiplayer game where the old axiom "the more the merrier" holds true.
Play out the Runebound Campaign scenarios. I got through two expansions and the Isle of Dread, leaving two box sets and four expansions unplayed. Part of my problem was trying to extrapolate Mr. Skeletor's solitaire adapations to the regular ruleset, which almost merged up with the normal rules. I like the modified threat track idea, but I spent too much time trying to figure out how to retrofit the solitaire adaptations and what to do when the adaptations didn't address other issues with the scenarios. I think these games are probably going to spend a bit of time on the shelf until my granddaughter is old enough to play (and I'm hoping that's in about three years when she's six). Again, I'm finding that solitaire play is a much tougher row to hoe for me, and that's making it harder for me to work up enthusiasm for playing the entire set.
There is no 8! Or 9 or 10! Take that Vasel! ;-) Seriously, 8 is almost always "give back to the hobby" and this year I did it in a different way by donating nearly 100 games and expansions, largely from Avalanche Press, GMT's Great Battles of History, and old AH/Smithsonian games to the Jack Vasel Memorial Fund auction on BGG in November. I got into it a little late, and I was slightly disappointed at the relatively low bids made, but I did generate $1300 for the fund and (only slightly more amazing) managed to ship all of the games to 18 different recipients spread around the world. As I write, most of the people have acknowledged receipt and no one has complained that the games didn't arrive. Teachable Moment: Don't try to ship more than four or five packages at once. Without an Excel spreadsheet, this would have been a disaster. An entire bedroom became a shipping point for three weeks trying to get all of this stuff out, and I spent well over $100 for shipping materials. Also, thanks to the great people at BottosCon and my group in Portland who also helped out by buying some games in advance that contributed to the total.

The main thing I learned this year is that solitaire gaming, while appealing intellectually, is not nearly as satisfying an experience for me. As such, I'm going to focus more on face-to-face gaming goals next year, as well as one surprise goal that may be the most foolhardy yet. And another that may be the most difficult goal I've ever attempted - put a hard limit on what games and supplies I purchase in 2012. Stay tuned for the 2012 resolution list!

Salishan 2011 Retreat - Thursday through Friday

2011-12-13T14:20:00.000-08:00

Chris held his annual Salishan gaming retreat this past weekend, and it was a hoot and a half. Attending at various stages were Chris, myself, Greg, Mike, Ken R, Ken K, KC, Rita, Jeff, and Matt R.

A big part of what made this retreat special were the metagames that Chris had come up with. We had three in all: an Ascension (iOS) tournament, a Magic: the Gathering sealed deck/booster draft tournament, and an ongoing "rewards" program for doing various things, such as taking a walk on the beach, making someone a drink, winning a game (or coming in last). Chris gave out "Brooks Bucks" for these things, and at the end of the retreat we had an auction for stuff that people had brought, including a few very special things. I'll go into more detail on the auction in the second post.

Because I had a choir rehearsal on Thurday evening until 8:30pm, and Matt had a company party downtown that same night near my rehearsal, we didn't get out of Portland until around 9pm, and then we stopped in Sherwood to grab some groceries for Matt's meal prep. At Sunriver (my hosted retreat) I expect people to feed themselves for breakfast and lunch, and dinners are largely "go out" or "I make Costco lasagna". At Salishan, someone is always making a meal, largely because there are not a lot of close-by food options that are good. I brought an excellent Italian chili recipe I got from one of the Silver Palate cookbooks that I'd made in advance, plus some cornbread I prepared on Friday night. 5 BB for preparing a meal!

We arrived about 11:15pm, and while I was pretty tired I was massively energized by the news that the Ascension app for iOS had been updated and the expansion cards were now available for purchase. After doing my happy Ascension dance and preparing a couple of Old-Fashioneds for people (more BB!), Matt and I dove into the app for a bit while Jeff, Greg, Ken, and Chris finished up their game.

Once they were done, we all played a round of Train of Thought, a cool word association party game where you have to start with a word, add two more, then other people shout out guesses of what your second card's word is. You then pick one of those words, following it up with two more and go through the process until someone guesses the word. Both you and the correct guesser get a card which counts as a point, and you continue until the timer runs out, then the next person starts a chain of words. I grokked the process after one round and managed to win the game with 7 points after all of us had played the Conductor. I liked this game quite a bit as I do well with word association games, and this one encourages a lot of cleverness in what clues you give. Recommended as a gift, btw.

At this point, it was closing in on 2am, and with so many early risers in this group I knew it was time to get some rest. I had the upstairs loft that I shared with Mike, who was only sleeping there on Friday night, and I had my earplug earbuds, so his snoring was not an issue for me. Hope that was the case for him as well!

Friday was the "big" day for games, at least in terms of numbers of games played. I personally got in six different games, including one long game, Urban Sprawl, which kicked off the festivities. I had been very interested in trying this with three after my initial foray up at BottosCon in early November with four, and was hoping that the downtime was not bad - game length really doesn't change, but your involvement in the game is smaller with four, and many people are saying that four has too much downtime. I think that was at the very least a reasonable assessment from my first game.

I've discussed US in an earlier post, so I won't go into the details here. I will say that I had a much better idea of what to do in this game, but the arc went much the same way - player gets a lot of offices, other players work hard to get those offices away from first player, people score lots of points. Matt was the guy who ended up with a lot of offices in the midgame and during that period he created a lead that was very hard to overcome, nearly lapping me at one point. I made a strong end-game run that, had it happened before the final elections, would have put me within 20 points of Matt, who scored over 250 points, but as it was I was a lot closer to 40 points behind, with Ken further back than that.

I normally like to play a game several times before making a judgement on it, but in this case I think that I have to go with the general perception that the game is too chaotic for it's length, and even with three players there isn't enough going on that's interesting. I compare it to a solitaire game where a significant portion of the player's turn is administrating the AI - doing things on behalf of the system that don't involve any decision-making. In US, even though it's not solitaire, you can spend easily half of a turn (or more, if you don't do much) handling events, elections, etc. While the game is not total chaos, as some have unfairly said, there is simply too much time spent admining the AI and not enough making good strategic choices. I was disappointed enough that I stripped the sleeves from the cards and used them in a new game I'd bought on my way out. When I got home, US went on the sale/trade pile, a first for a Chad Jensen game for me. It simply won't see any table time with my group, and it's not compelling enough for me to hang onto for the future. As my other friend Chris said, "What a disappointment," but this time I agree.

The next game up was a four-player game of Team Asia for Ticket to Ride. This is perhaps my favorite version of this game, although I think that most games where the double routes become singles with a smaller number of players tends to "break" the maps to some extent. It's not bad in Europe, where you can lay down stations, but it's harsh in the other games and this is no exception. That said, it was a very cool game, although I think my communication with Jeff as my partner was partly to blame, while KC and Rita got a lucky set of ticket draws at the end that let them clean up.

The partnership works like this: You can't talk about your cards or the board (which I did not find to be an issue), but when you draw two train cards one goes in your hand and one on the card tray that you and your partner can see. Tickets work in a similar fashion, and you can place two tickets from your hand onto the tray as your turn if you wish. You can use cards from hand or the tray as you see fit. Teams play one person right after the other. There are also tunnels that have a large number of cards that are revealed, sometimes as many as six, so you better be ready if you need to dig. We had one route at the very end of the game die because we drew four cards that were locos or matches.

While I enjoyed the game, at the same time I was looking forward to trying it with six players rather than four. And I did, but not for a couple of days.

Next up was a quick game of 7 Wonders (four player, with KC, Rita, and Jeff). I did well, but not enough to win. As we closed in on dinnertime, KC pulled out Castle Ravenloft, which was perfect to allow me to start cooking. Because of some surprises (such as discovering my wife had frozen the chili and that I needed to mix the cornbread batter) I was not terribly involved in the middle part of the game, but it was clear that things were going just well enough for the party to advance toward Klak and his wacky machine. Once everything in the kitchen was more or less resolved, I got back to the game to find that we had just located Klak. I immediately used my Dagger Barrage and did quite a bit of damage to the machine *and* Klak, but my crit hit was unfortunately on one of the evil Red Shirts rather than a critical target. Everyone else missed pretty much every roll they had during their turns and KC's Dragonborn character died, which according to the scenario, lost the game for us. Still, a huge amount of fun for the parts I was there, and I'm glad I have this and Wrath (Drizzt seemed too much like more of the same, but I may pick it up at some point anyway).

After dinner, we played an excellent game of Elfenland with Mike, Matt, KC, and Rita, and while I had exactly *three* tiles that helped me that were played by other players in the *entire* game, I did pretty well, ending with 19 points at my home base. And I took third behind Rita and Mike, who had 3 and 1 cards respectively! My last hand I drew three raft cards when I had zero water routes I could use, and that killed me more than anything. Still, this is a very entertaining game, although every time I play we seem to use a different ruleset than I'm used to (the old Game Cabinet translation).

The end of the night was Red Dragon Inn, a wacky game of drinking your fellow adventurers under the table. I was Fiona the Volatile, and I think I must have set a record for passing out - I had three turns before the Alcohol hit the Fortitude, dude. Matt ran out of money after a few more turns, and Chris and KC fought it out, with KC running out of money but Chris running out of Fortitude, and in the end it was Chris who bit the floor before KC hit the stables. This is a great late night closer that takes 20-30 minutes and I will make more of an effort to get it on the table.

I ended the evening with a late night stroll to the beach to listen to the surf, which was cold but pleasant with cloud cover but a full moon. The night before had been completely clear, and I'd wished I gone out that night. A great end to a fun day.

I should mention that by this point I was up to about 18 Brooks Bucks, largely by making drinks and dinner and for bringing alcohol. I also made several Monte Carlo drinks, which is an Old Fashioned with Benedictine instead of simply syrup, and served neat rather than on the rocks. A great autumn/winter drink if you don't mind it being a cold drink in the glass, but warm going down.

Next up, Saturday and Sunday.

AE:TK - Fall of France Lessons Learned

2011-12-06T10:40:00.001-08:00

I got the chance to run the A.3 scenario with my friend Eric on Monday morning, playing the West, and had a few thoughts on the scenario:

The Maginot Line is hard to get through in no small part because of the shifts from terrain and the fortress units, so it becomes a matter of attrition which the Axis does not have time to do. Metz in particular can simply be reinforced at least one step per turn. While breaking this line would almost certainly result in the conquest of France, it will probably take more than three turns to do so.
Antwerp/Brussels (VASSAL module has a slightly different map than the new edition, so a slightly different arrangement of cities) is a bit of a trap if the Axis plays a Blitz marker on it. This will force a retreat which will screw up the northern end of the line. Note that I did this in my playthrough. As such, it's important for the Western Allies player to garrison Paris with at least three or four steps to avoid a quick breakthrough by a couple of big units that might push through Calais.
Alternatively, you could leave a single unit in Paris and retreat the whole stack into that city. You're going to lose any Belgian steps anyway, might as well burn it for overstacking at the end of the segment.
Know some of the "smaller" rules, such as road/rail being slower for multistep units, no more than one minor nation allowed in a hex unless using an Exp unit, shifts for fortress units, Axis Minor Country Occupation conditional events, how the Naval Warfare Delay Box differs from the normal Delay box.
Understand the sequence of play and how some replacements come at the start of the turn and some come at the end.
Contesting a support unit means that both units will come back a turn faster, assuming the same die roll to place it on the turn track. Sometimes it's better to let the unit place successfully and not come back than to contest and have the unit come back.
While not important in this game because of length, anything you can do to improve your delay roll and hurt your opponent's can make a big difference.
High odds are good for eliminations, but if you just want to be pushing back your opponent and are not as concerned with causing step losses, 3-1 is nearly as good as long as you can advance one or two hexes at a time. You need 6-1 odds to start pushing back faster or causing more losses. You want 9-1 if you don't want to take steps yourself.
As the Axis, you really need to be able to place the Blitz marker in Paris at some point in order to force the units there out. Anything else won't get it done unless you completely overwhelm the French in your first attack.
I really like this game.

In our game, Eric tried to breach the Maginot Line at Metz (and to some extent to the south) with some success. He didn't see being able to succeed without taking Metz, although the inability of those units to attack effectively more or less turns the hexes into impassible mountains that don't require much to keep those units tied down. He also didn't do much against Amsterdam/Rotterdam in his first attack and that may be an OK choice as the hexes around Rotterdam aren't all that important and even one 3-5-2 infantry will tie down that hex effectively. Remember though that the Allies will get a minor step that can be used for BH and to place in Am/Rot that could move out and screw up supply lines, although this is a step the French won't have. I think it best to take out BH early and just not worry about it, but I'm sure others have had different experiences.

My next step is rereading the ruleset and playing the West Front one map game (at least in part), and then soloing the East front map. I'm making this choice because I recognize the most difficult part of the game to fully understand is the use of option cards, and these scenarios narrow those choices down to a level I think I can manage, especially with all of the changes to the deck made with every play, both in terms of cards you can play and cards that are out. Eric and I discussed an app or website that could do this, although since I'm trying to learn iPad coding I may do this for iDevices, and it would be a good sized project for me to take on. I'll let you know if that ever happens.

Thanks to Eric for a good game. It was especially fun to see how a non-historical strategy worked out against the French, even if this one didn't go so well. TK seems to be an excellent vehicle for What-If's and counterfactual exploration at a manageable level.

AE:TK - Fall Of France, Turn 5

2011-12-04T16:07:00.001-08:00

Well, here we are. It's been a tough slog for the Axis, and they are far from being shoe-ins to take Paris this final turn, but they have some things working in their favor, such as an extra tank army and an AF.

Both the Blitz marker and AF are placed in Paris. This will limit use of HQs during Blitz combat, but the need is to push the French out and with four steps there this is the only hope the Germans have. They also combine the units east of Antwerp to form a second tank army.

The Germans move one 6-6-3 back from Lille to GM to make room for the 8-6-4 tank, and the only Blitz combat they can do is against Amiens, which results in a 25:10 fight at 2-1, raised up to 3-1 for the tank and AF (with the Fr HQ hobbling the attack somewhat). The Germans roll a 5 (they have been unfortunate in this campaign) for a Dr1 1/1. This is not as bad as it looks - it forces out the stack, which can't go to Paris but instead to Le Havre. The French lose one 1-1-2 step to the Force Pool, and the Germans reduce their 5-4-4 unit in Calais, while advancing the 6-6-3 in Calais and the 8-6-4 in Lille into Amiens. At long last, the Germans have a shot at Paris. Here is the final map situation before the final attack:

This is it, the combat for the whole enchilada. The odds are 14:4, with one shift right for the AF, two shifts left for the city and for the HQ. The result is 2:1, which is not good - the Germans will need a roll of 1 or 2 to force a retreat. The roll is...

a 4. The French hold out to win the scenario!

Clearly I am a terrible Axis player. ;-)

Just for fun, let's assume that the roll was a 1 or 2 and the Germans were able to invoke Case Yellow. Here's what would have happened per 16.2.1 had they been successful:

First, the Axis select France as the country in question. This country has a special set of steps compared to other countries, but it's important to note that Case Yellow *can* be invoked on different countries than France.
All of the French units that don't have a V reinforcement code are removed from the game. That means two units on the map and one in the Force Pool. Note that the Allied AA army must perform emergency breakdown as the French step in it's holding box is not a V unit.
The Br 1-1-2 Fra colonial unit in it's holding box goes to the Delay Box.
Alsace-Lorraine and Occupied France are both ceded to Germany, these are now Home Country spaces. The two Br infantry units left in France are all Interned, which I leave as an exercise for the reader.
Stuff happens in Syria, and Vichy is created. Any units in Vichy are interned.
Germany gets to apply influence to a minor country (historically this is Italy, although Italy is not in play in this scenario). The Germans may, if they wish, influence Vichy, although again that's not valuable in this scenario.

Had France fallen, this is what the map would have looked like at the end of the German combat phase:

Kinda empty. Like DisneyWorld with a hurricane bearing down.

So where did the Germans go wrong? The biggest problem I'm experiencing with this game is how best to position units to be ready to exploit, to prevent "bad" retreats into their backfield (as happened a lot in Barbarossa), but also how best to choose battles so as to make hay. In this case, I think the mistake was to overextend to Paris and give up Lille at the end of the third turn. The French were simply too strong to leave units hanging out like that. Better to hold back one hex and not advance beyond Troyes, which would have still kept the French from using the Maginot Troops, but still forcing them to extend their front. The Germans have a huge quantitative and qualitative advantage, but they have a very narrow front to work with and taking advantage of a broader front would have been a better idea than pressing forward. I'm also not sure that I needed that second air unit near Rotterdam, and perhaps I should have held one out for the fourth turn.

Certainly the Germans had some terrible rolls on the fourth turn, especially that Ex result. This is why you want to get a 6:1 combat ratio to avoid this result, which will stall an offensive like nothing else. Except an Ad result.

I hope you've enjoyed this runthrough of this training scenario, and have a better idea of how the game works. I have tried to be as correct as I can, but as I'm still learning the game myself I can only apologize for any mistakes I've made with the rules, as well as any sub-optimal plays I've made. If you see any mistakes, please let me know in the comments and I will try to get them fixed in the entries. Thanks very much for following along, and maybe we'll play a game of TK someday.

AE:TK - Fall Of France, Turn 4

2011-12-04T15:29:00.001-08:00

The game is on the line for the Germans at this point, but there is some hope.

The Initial Admin Phase is fairly straightforward as there are no support units to place, although we do remove the two AF units left on the board from the previous turn to the delay box. We then combine the 2-2-4 with the 5-5-4 in Antwerp to create the full 8-6-4 panzer army, and build a 6-6-3 in the hex east of Antwerp with the three 1-2-3 units there. Because we want to get another couple of steps in Gau Moselland, we breakdown the 5-6-2 in Koln and move the 3-4-2 unit into GM. Note that we don't need to move the 3-4-2 to the Delay box because it wasn't going back to the Force Pool. Had we broken it down to three 1-2-3 units, it would have. Finally, we place the Blitz marekr in Lille, although it would have been awesome to put it in Paris. Looks like we'll need to be lucky or good or both to win this turn.

The 8-6-4 moves to Calais, the 6-6-3 we just built moves to Antwerp, and the 3-4-2 moves to GM as planned. For our final move, we move the 1-2-3 we just broke off and the tanks in Rotterdam and Ruhr, and move them all to the hex just east of Antwerp for combining in the last turn if necessary. The Mountain unit in the Ruhr goes to Rotterdam to garrison the conquered minor city. Note that the 4-4-3 in central France can't move, although it will be able to attack. Here is the situation after movement:

The plan is to punch through the line by taking out the 3-4-2 in Lille, then advancing to Reims with a strong stack, while taking out the units in Amiens in normal combat, possibly the units in Verdun as well. We should have Paris more or less surrounded by the end of the turn with little the West can do to fight the Axis off.

The Blitz combat needs to go well, so we throw everything we have at the combat against the 3-4-2 in Lille, which will have support from the French HQ in Paris. Initial odds are 35:6, which reduces to 5:1, but the Axis gets one combat shift for having a tank unit as the HQs cancel out. The result is not great: Dr 1 1/2. This is enough to kill the unit, but not enough to get a decent breakthrough. The 3-4-2 retreats one space, then is sent to the Delay Box and resplaced with a 1-1-2 inf step, then that step returns to the force pool. The Axis lose the 2-2-4 tank step in GM. One 6-6-3 advances from Antwerp, one from GM, into Lille.
All is not lost, though, as there can be one more large combat that will hopefully knock out enough steps to leave the Germans a clear path to Paris. The 8-6-4 and 6-6-3 in Calais and the two 6-6-3s in Lille, supported by the HQ in Antwerp, attack the Fr 3-3-2 and the British 1-2-2 in Amiens, supported by the French HQ in Paris. Odds are 30:7, or 4-1, with the two HQ shifts canceling out. The roll is a 6, an Ex! The Axis lose one step from the 8-6-4 unit in Calais, while the Allies lose one step from the 3-3-2, flipping it. There is no advance. This was a terrible result for the Axis, they were completely unable to advance much beyond getting into Lille, although the French units have been hurt pretty badly and there aren't many units left.

The Germans have no reserve movement, and no conditional events. On to the Allied turn, with the map situation as follows:

The French also have no support units to place, but none to remove either. No point in placing the Surface Fleet they got this turn. They are unable to combine any of their forces either, so how they place units will have a large effect on the outcome of the game.

For movement:

the 1-1-3 mountain unit in Limoges moves one hex NE to tie down the German 4-4-3 unit;
The 3-3-2 SE of Paris moves one hex to Reims;
The 2-3-2 AA multinational unit in Paris moves NE to Amiens;
The Br 1-2-2 infantry in Amiens moves SE to Reims;
The Fr 4-4-3 infantry in Verdun moves through Reims to Amiens;
Two 1-2-2 infantry move from Metz to Verdun.

The idea here is to present as strong a front as possible while preserving a ZOC picket between the Germans and Paris. Losing Metz would hurt a bit, but it is a tougher nut to crack than the Germans want for a sideshow right now. There is no combat, and no reserve movement. The conditional event gives the French one infantry step, which goes to Paris.

The turn ends with the delay rolls, which could be important, but neither the Fr mech multistep or the two Axis AF units will see play for the rest of this scenario. However, the Axis get a 4-4-3, a 5-4-4, and an AF, while the British get a surface fleet and a defensive unit that won't see play. Either the Germans have enough to finish this or they don't. Here's the situation at the end of turn 4:

AE:TK - Fall of France, West Turn 3

2011-12-04T14:12:00.001-08:00

A bit of mixed success for the Axis in their initial invasion, but they've taken Calais and are knocking on the door in Paris. The French forces have been divided, although the "useful" ones are all near Paris. The French must try to hold out through two more Axis turns, but it's not all about Paris and there's no guarantee they can hold out.

First up is the Option Card Phase, and the Allies are forced to play 16, the Dyle Plan. Anyone who has studied this period in history knows this was a Bad Play, but the card may have it's appeal. During the Option Card segment, the British get a 1-1-2 infantry and a second air force in the Delay Box, where they'll be lucky to see them at all in this scenario, although they'd be much more important in a campaign game. The card grants no replacements, but the Minor Country Production and French War Economy allow them to get two French Steps, which are placed in Paris.

During the Initial Admin Phase, there are no Political Events, so time to place support units. All that's left for both sides is the CV Fleet for the Brits and the AF unit for the Germans. The CV Fleet is placed in the all-sea hex just NW of Le Havre, in order to get a CV Strike in place that will help defend Paris next turn. Now the Axis must either contest it or have it flip to it's CVStrike side. Since the CV Fleet has been placed within three hexes of both Calais and Antwerp (both German Naval Bases) the Axis AF contests the CV Fleet and it goes to the Naval Warfare Delay box while the last German AF goes to the Delay Box. Just in case, both the British and French troop convoy markers go to the Convoy box. The West puts the Blitz marker in Reims as it's within two spaces of both lone Axis tank single-steppers alone in hexes.

Organization is simple - the French combine the two 1-1-2 infantry in Paris, sending one back to the Force Pool and flipping the other to it's two-step side. Here's the situation after Organization:

The Axis has left a couple of tank units vulnerable, and the French want to garrison their cities to avoid Case Yellow occurring without Paris being taken. Calais has been taken, so Metz, Lyon, Brest, Toulouse and Bordeaux need to be held. The 1-2-2 at the south end of the Maginot Line moves into Lyon, the 1-1-3 in Lyons moves to Limoges to block the route to the south-western cities. We assume Brest will be OK. To help reinforce Metz, we move the 1-2-2 on the Maginot line just south of Metz into that space.

To complete movement, we want to carefully consider how units will be forced to retreat in the next turn. The Axis will almost certainly put a Blitz marker in Paris in order to force units in that space to retreat if they get that result, but remember that retreating units *pick up* units in hexes they retreat through. No point in making this easy for the Germans. The French make the following moves to try to better consolidate their position:

2-2-2 Fr HQ from Reims to Paris,
3-4-2 Fr Inf from Reims to Lille (to force an extra attack),
1-2-2- Br Inf from Reims to Amiens,
3-3-2 Fr Inf from Paris to Amiens,
2-1-3 Br Tank and 4-4-3 Fr Inf from Amiens to Reims

At this point, the French are in a good position to attack the 6-6-3 on the outskirts of Paris. They have an armor unit to help get one shift, and an HQ to get another. It was a bit of a risk to put a unit in Lille, but the hope is that it will stall the German advance for another turn, and maybe some of the good units from the Conditional Events that we'll get this turn will have low Delay Box rolls. Here's the position after Operational Movement:

The West gets a Blitz combat and will use it to get the benefit of that British tank. The initial odds are 16:6, or 2-1, but there are two shifts for the attacker bringing the total to 4-1. Note that the UK tank must be supplied, and it is because of the Supply Convoy printed in the North Sea Zone Convoy Box. The roll is a 5, a Dr1 1/1 result - not great, but it will work. The 6-6-3 retreats one hex to the SE, then loses one step to attrition. The UK tank is sent back to the force pool as it is the only armor step in the attack. The West advances the two 3-3-2 infantry units in Orleans into the vacated defender hex. This has worked out well for the Allies, as the Germans can't get to Paris easily. The Blitz marker is removed.

The French might as well continue to cause problems for the overextended Germans, so in the regular Combat Phase they attack the 2-2-4 in Troyes at 12:2 or 6:1 with a shift for the HQ in Paris. The result is Dr2 1/1, which is not great. The Tank, however, must retreat one of two directions, and neither is great for the Germans. The unit retreats two hexes to the NE, taking the 6-6-3 in Verdun with it, and then takes the step loss. One of the two 3-3-2 units east of Orleans takes it's step loss, and the 1-1-2 advances to Verdun, figuring that the German 4-4-3 can't move and will be out of the action for the most part. The 4-4-3 goes there as well. The French eschew Reserve Movement. The final position after combat (and, for all intents and purposes, the end of the turn on the map) is shown below:

There is no one for the West to declare war on (and they can't do it during Limited War anyway), so that leaves conditional events, of which we have a few. So far this has been a single event, but it's worth mentioning that there is a specific order you work through - Permanent Events *in order*, then Option Card events. We have some of each.

We ignore reactivating or liberating minor countries, as these conditions don't apply. However, the next two events can take place, and the West must do so: Their Finest Hour and Paris Threatened, as an Axis unit is in France or Belgium-Holland. TFH simply takes the three units in the appropriate box of the Force Pool and puts them in the Delay Box. PT does the same with it's units, but since there is no minor country for the French to influence the second step is ignored. The Option card gives France an infantry step, so the 0-1-2 Res unit goes to Paris.

It's the end of the turn, so we have to roll on the Delay Box and Naval Warfare Delay boxes to see if any of these units will play a part. I'd noted before that the Allies got a -1 DRM, but I'd misread the table - neither side gets a DRM. The French get a Surf Fleet support marker for the next turn, the Brits get a Can 1-2-2 infantry and their Surface Fleet in two turns, and the Germans get an AF and a 4-4-3 in two turns as well. The rest all will come in after the end of the scenario, so we ignore them. There is no point in checking the Belgians; if the Allies take Antwerp the Germans aren't going to be winning this game anyway.

Finally, the turn marker advances to June-July, so the Germans get two 4-4-3 infantry units to their force pool (which they can certainly use) and the West gets a surface fleet. There will be very little support unit play in the next turn, but the Germans are happy to see an AF coming in for the last turn, they may need it.

Things are looking a bit tougher for the Germans, will they be able to push through to the outskirts of Paris even though their initial plans were thwarted?

AE:TK - Fall of France, Axis Turn 3

2011-12-02T21:32:00.001-08:00

We made it, Case Yellow. Should be very exciting! Well, for me...

Everyone on both sides of the Rhine has been gearing up and getting ready, so let's do this thing!

This is a Seasonal turn, so we need to first check the VP status. When I mentioned before that the Germans had +1 strategic hexes, I'd neglected Metz, which is an Axis strategic hex. That means that the Axis are actually at 0. However, if Case Yellow works out, they will take Metz, Antwerp, and Paris for the three they need to flip the turn marker to the Axis Tide side.

Case Yellow has four portions of the Option Card Segment, but only two of them are relevant to this scenario. France is not a PAC (Pact Affected Country), instead it is at war. Also, no point in removing cards we aren't allowed to use. We *do* select a Neutral country (Belgium-Holland) and go through the steps for declaring war on it. Because BH has units beyond the Res unit, we will spend a bit more time on it than we did with DN.

First, we get rid of any Partnership units, but there aren't any. Second, we put the Res infantry (and the country marker, just so we remember it's a Western Allied country now) in the West Force Pool. Third we place the Exp cavalry unit in the Delay Box because it has a stripe, but not the 0-2-0 Fort unit as it is specifically excluded by rule 13.7.1 Step 3. Fourth, we place the 0-1-0 unit in Rotterdam because that's where it goes (Rott). All units are placed single step side up, but there's a chance it will flip later. We place the single remaining unit, the Belgian Army, on it's one step side in Antwerp because that just seems to be the right place.

Next we place a Mobilizing marker in Antwerp, the capital, because the country was not activated by a Free Passage event. We then roll to see how many units will Mobilize on a d6, rolling a 2. That means both the Rotterdam fort and the Belgian army will flip to their two-step sides. Germany is now at war with Belgium-Holland, and it is a Western Allies active minor country.

The last part of the Option Card Segment is to add an Axis Scratch Convoy (which we won't use) and another AF support unit to the German Force Pool. Not a lot, but we have what we need. Replacements are 3 panzer and 6 infantry steps, which are placed as follows:

Three 1-2-3 in Frankfurt;
Two 2-2-4 in the hex east of the Ruhr with the 4-4-3 HQ Nor;
One 2-2-4 in the hex west of Kassel;
One 1-2-3 and one 2-2-4 in Hamburg for proximity to the front and we may need to replace steps;
Two 1-2-3 in Berlin

We are at capacity on every hex along the border other than the northernmost, and it has to go into the same space as the hex south of it. Don't worry, it will do some damage. Note that while the replacements are just for this turn, if I meet the requirements for Case Yellow in the next three turns at the end of my turn I can invoke it. Basically, I need to either take Paris or three cities in France, which would almost certainly be Metz, Lyon, and one of Brest, Toulouse, or Marseilles. All are pretty far out there, so Paris looks to be the place I want to be spending the summer in.

Here's a picture of the map following activation of BH and Axis replacements:

The next step, as there are no political events, is to place support units and the Blitz marker. I begin by placing the Troop Convoy in the Convoy box of the North Sea just to take an infantry step to Stavanger on the off chance the Brits get stinky. Being out of supply won't hurt the unit in Oslo at this time.

I also put the Sub Fleet in the Strategic Warfare box, and the West puts their Surface Fleet there as well to stop it. There's really no reason not to do this in this scenario, and the Surface Fleet isn't going to do much good for our purposes. Off to the Delay Box they go. Note that we need to take both Antwerp and Rotterdam to conquer BH.

The really important part now is to place the Air Force units and the Blitz marker. Why not go big, I say, and use all four of the AF units, but there are some limitations on them that will slow things down. For one thing, you can't put AF units in adjacent hexes, at least if they've been placed successfully. If there were enemy AF units on the map, I couldn't place them in or adjacent to them either, but that's not an issue for us. The really obvious choices are the hex SW of Rotterdam (Air Base two hexes to the east), and the Gau Moselland hex (Air Base two hexes to the east). The UK AF contests one of these, but I have four units to work with so I just replace the unit that was contested with another one. This leaves one AF. I could put this unit SW of Metz, but I'm hoping I won't need it. Amiens or Rhiems would be tempting, but they are out of range of an Air Base, which requires a friendly unit in a road/rail, city, or port hex. We could put the unit in Calais, however, but I'm going to be slightly cautious

The Blitz marker Goes in Antwerp. Every hex I wish to attack in the Blitz segment is within a couple of hexes of Antwerp, so I should have enough units to knock out the BH units and start doing some damage to the French and British. My goal is to get far enough in to have a unit able to attack the French HQ and knock it out by the end of the turn, and have enough units in position to attack Paris next turn. Who knows, maybe I'll get there before July. Worked for Hitler.

Next up is Organization, which mostly means building up my multi step units. I build the last 6-6-3 in Bremen, bump up the HQ Sou west of Kassel to full strength, and build one 5-6-2 infantry to take up the rear in Frankfurt. I leave the units uncombined in Hamburg and Berlin in order to use them to build up any units that take hits, if possible. No need to beef up the units across from the Maginot line, the French don't have enough attack factors to make that a reasonable attack. Here's how things look before I begin movement:

My plan is to use some units to attack Rotterdam, but to make the primary attacks (using HQs) against Brussels and Lille during the Blitz Combat segment. Lille is a bit of a crap shoot, but if I can bust through the line I stand an excellent chance of taking out the French HQ and Calais during normal combat, setting me up to take Paris with little effort next turn. Again, I have never tried this before, so we'll see how well it works.

Movement goes like this:

Two 6-6-3's in Koln to Gau Moselland (which they can do because they are only moving one hex),
5-6-2 in Saarbrucken to Koln to hold the logistical tail if necessary,
5-6-2 in Frankfurt to Saarbrucken (why I build that unit),
8-6-4 and 6-6-3 from Ruhr to the hex east of Antwerp,
4-4-3 HQ east of Kassel to Koln to support attack on Lille,
One 2-2-4 tank east of Ruhr to the hex SE of Rotterdam, which will allow other units to move through it,
One 2-2-4 tank east of Ruhr to hex SW of Rotterdam,
6-6-3 in Bremen to hex SW of Rotterdam,
2-2-4 in Hamburg to hex SE of Rotterdam,
2-2-4 in hex east of Rotterdam to hex SE of Rotterdam,
4-4-3 HQ Nor east of Ruhr to Ruhr,
Two 1-2-3 units in Berlin to hex east of Ruhr, just to give a bit of retreat room,
1-2-3 in Hamburg via convoy to Oslo,
1-2-3 in Oslo to Stavanger.

Tight, but we got them all in. Here's how it looks:

Now for the three attacks in the Blitz Combat segment. The 6-6-3 and the four tanks will attack Rotterdam, the 8-6-4, 6-6-3, and Nor HQ will attack Antwerp, and the two 6-6-3 and Sou HQ will attack Lille. Note that while I am stating which combats will occur, you declare them one at a time and are under no obligation to declare or undertake a given attack at any time. Time to see if being stingy with that AF support unit will pay off...

We begin in Antwerp. Because there are no French units present, the French HQ cannot participate. The two units involved as given above have 18 attack factors (8+6+4 for the HQ) vs 2, or 9:1 odds. There are four column shifts for the attacker (two air units, one HQ, one supplied armor during Blitz) and one for the defender (city) so the attack stays at 9:1. I roll a 6, a terrible roll, but better here than other places. The result is Dr2, 1/1. First we make the retreat, which must follow the retreat priorities. First, the unit must retreat to a space without EZOCs, and the only space is Calais. Next, the unit must do the same, and the only space is Amiens. However, since there were units in Calais that the Belgian army first went into, they must retreat as well, so the Br 1-2-3, the French 4-4-3, and the Belgian 2-2-2 all retreat to Amiens. This is a bit of a problem for the West, as only one minor country will be able to stay in that hex at the end of the Blitz Combat segment.

Now we deal with the 1/1 attrition result. The Germans must lose one tank step as at least one was involved per 4.2.6.1, and the West loses one step from the Belgian army, even though it could have taken the step from any of the three in the space. Note that removing the UK step would not have helped as it's not a minor country, while France and BH are.

Finally, we advance/exploit. The number of exploitation hexes is dictated by the retreat result plus the number of results the defender was not able to satisfy, which in our case is 2+0=2. The first hex must be the defender's hex, so the 6-6-3 advances to Calais via Antwerp, while the 5-5-4 armor unit advances only as far as Antwerp to keep the supply lines open. Not the best result, but one that will work. Perhaps we should have made the next attack before we made the attack on Antwerp...

Next up is the two 6-6-3's attacking the mixed French/British stack in Lille. Initial odds are 16 (6+6+4 for the HQ) vs 8 (4+2+2 for the French HQ), a total of 2-1. There are two shifts for the attacker (HQ, AF), two for the defender (river, HQ). The roll is a 5 for a result of EX. The Germans want to continue to press the attack, so they eliminate one step bringing one infantry down to 4-4-3. The West, realizing that they will get hammered in this hex in the regular combat phase, choose instead to retreat to Reims with the HQ. This allows the 6-6-3 and 4-4-3 unit to advance. [Note: I missed the rule that you can't retreat a force that includes an HQ, even one providing ranged support, as in this example. Thus, the French must either take the hits from the units in Lille, or reduce their HQ before retreating. I suspect this problem exists throughout the entire example, for which I apologize, but the other elements of the example are worthwhile so long as you keep the retreat rule in mind. Sorry!]

The final Blitz Combat fight is in Rotterdam, which stacks up 6+2+2+2+2 for 14 to 2, or 7:1 odds. The Axis have an AF and a tank, and the BH have a city and a fortress unit, so the odds stay where they are. This time, the roll is a 1 which means a Dr3 0/1. Since the Fortress unit has no movement, it must convert all retreat results into step losses, which means it has one retreat result and one attrition result it cannot apply. This means an exploit value for the Germans of 4 hexes! One 2-2-4 moves to Rotterdam and stays there to allow for the country to be conquered at the end of the Axis turn, the 6-6-3 and two tanks end up in Gau Moselland, and the last two 2-2-4 tanks go to Antwerp to beef up the lost armor step in the next organization phase.

Since this is the end of a segment, the Belgian army is removed for overstacking as there is another minor army in the hex. It was going to be removed anyway as BH will be conquered at the end of the faction turn.

Not a bad start, but there has been no breakthrough to Paris yet. Here's the situation at the end of Blitz Combat - I have removed the Blitz marker to keep the map a little cleaner, same with the Mobilization marker.

We need to keep pressing, so the Axis engages in two combats. The first is a "soak-off" to prevent the Fr HQ from defending in the second. The 4-4-3 unit in Lille will attack the combined stack in Reims at 4:8, or 1-2. This is a legal attack, as the attacker must prove at least 1-3 odds - you can't throw a toothpick at an elephant, but you can throw a toothbrush! The other will be a 20-6 attack on Verdun which will include two offensive shifts. The hope is to cut off the units on the Maginot Line, feeble as they are, and begin to encircle Paris.

First the soak off, as otherwise the HQ could provide both ranged support *and* defend in it's hex! The odds are 1-2, shifted down to 1-3 for the defending HQ. The result is Ad 1/0, so the 4-4-3 retreats to Antwerp (the only hex that meets priority 1) and loses a step. This means the multi-step unit goes to the Delay Box and is replaced with a 1-2-3 infantry. Not great, but it gives us a much better shot at the units in Verdun.

Now for the Verdun attack. Having the 6-6-3 unit in Lille makes a big difference, as it negates the river defensive shift. The result is 3:1 shifted twice (AF, HQ). Note that tanks do *not* create shifts in normal combat, only during Blitz. This puts us on the 6:1/8:1 column, and we roll a 2 for a result of Dr3 0/0. It would have been nice to get some attrition too, but a Dr3 will give us some room to cause trouble for the French. The two units must retreat to the same space and their path becomes Troyes (only space not in an EZOC), then on to Orleans. They could not end up in Paris because the space SE of it is the same distance from the original hex and retreating units must be further away with each hex retreated.

This leaves the advancing armies with a small dilemma. Supply is a good thing to have, but not critical if you don't need to move. I decide to be bold with the Axis exploitation, which is three hexes. The 6-6-3 in Lille advances around to the hex SE of Paris the 6-6-3 in Gau Moselland advances into Verdun, and one 2-2-4 tank advances to Troyes. My hope is that this presents the West with too many threats to defend against even though the tank in Troyes and the infantry SE of Paris are now out of supply and thus won't be able to move in the nex OpMove phase.

For reserve movement, I can do some things. First, I move the two 1-2-3s east of Ruhr and the single 1-2-3 in Anwerp to the hex between the Ruhr and Antwerp with the idea of building a new infantry army next turn. I move the Nor HQ to Antwerp where it will be better able to defend front line units. Sadly, I can't move units into EZOCs (or out of them) so the tank west of Kassel has nowhere useful to go. Just in case, I bring it and the mountain unit in Hamburg into the Ruhr. At the very least one will be able to garrison Antwerp.

We have not met the requirements for Case Yellow, although we are very close! Even worse for the French, we have a breakthrough that may allow us to evoke Case Yellow even if we *don't* take Paris. However, we have conquered BH, so it's units go to the Conquered Western Minor Country box with the Danes and Norwegians. Here's the map at the end of the Axis turn:

I'm not at all sure that this went like I'd hope it would, but there's no question that the Germans made some good progress, advancing adjacent to Paris (if a bit tenuously) and conquering BH. While there have been some losses, and few for the French, the point is not to take out units but to take territory, and some rather specific territory at that.

In the next installment, we'll see the West's response and attempts to hold paris while preventing the Axis from taking the entire country.

AE:TK - Fall of France, Allied Turn 1 thru Allied Turn 2

2011-12-02T12:26:00.001-08:00

Last time, we ran through the exercise of how to take Denmark-Norway using the Operation Weseruebung Option card. Now we will brush through the rest of the "Phony War" period as both sides build up for Case Yellow on Turn 3.

At this point, the Allies are unable to mount an invasion of Norway, and really the Brits don't have the troops to do this effectively anyway since they can't get air cover in the vicinity until they have their CV Fleet and even then the Axis can counter it if they can get one more unit up there. We will ignore DN for the remainder of this scenario for the sake of simplicity.

During the Allied Player Turn of Turn 1, we start with the Option Card play as this is a Seasonal Turn (note that we don't perform a Victory Check as it is not part of a Faction turn). The predesignated card plays are 23 - Commonwealth Support for Spring and 16 - Dyle Plan for Summer, so Dyle will be Pending and Commonwealth Support active. Dyle won't be much help other than to put several units in the Delay Box for the Brits and give the French one replacement step at the end of every turn, so not much to plan for there.

The active card for this turn has three sections, an Option Card segment, a Replacements Segment, and a Conditional Events segment that would normally happen every turn during this season. By scenario special rule, however, the Conditional Events event is ignored as those troops were sent to the Mediterranean and that part of the map is outside of the scope of this scenario. The Pacific War Display is not at issue so we ignore increasing the PSV by 1, but we do place the two colonial infantry units (Aus and Ind) in the Force Pool, although we won't get those steps replaced because of the special rule mentioned above. Finally, Britain gets one whopping infantry step, which it places in Southampton with every intent of shipping it to France. Note that this is Britain's last ground unit in the Force Pool, and it will have no further opportunities to place replacements because the option cards for this scenario don't allow it.

There are no Political Events and no need to place any support units other than a Troop Convoy in the North Sea to allow the Brits to bring over a 1-2-2 unit if they wish. The British want to be a little careful because that Airborne unit could show up again, so they will want units in both London and Southampton as they are both spots the Germans could use to get a toehold. A British Troop Convoy support unit is placed in the North Sea convoy box. There is no point in placing the French convoy or the British Air Force unit - the French don't need a convoy, and the AF unit will be needed when the Axis invades.

For the Initial Organization segment, the British choose not to combine the units in Southampton so that they will continue to protect the southern port cities. The French have some combinational opportunities, but the units are out of position to do so, so it will wait until the next turn.

For OpMovement, this is a good time to start getting the defensive line built up. For right now, that means moving the 1-1-2 one stepper infantry in Strasbourg to Verdun to create the larger unit next turn. I also move the 1-1-2 one stepper infantry in Dijon over to Paris just in case the airdrop unit shows up early. It's out of range, but this is cheap insurance and Dijon is not going to be an area of issue. I also move the 1-1-3 mtn unit from Marseilles to Lyon just in case. Were Italy in play, I might be more cautious with my southern flank, but for now there's really no urgency down there at all.

The Brits first send the Brit 1-2-2 infantry in Southampton to Le Havre via the Troop Convoy. This moves the Troop Convoy to the Used box and we place the moving unit in Le Havre where it cannot move any more. The other interesting move I will do this turn is move the BEF 1-2-2 unit in Calais to Paris to build the AA Army next turn. Why not.

The French are built for defense and since it's Limited War there is no ability to declare war on BH, so at this point the Allied turn is done. There's no need for Reserve movement either. Neither of the Permanent Conditional Events (Finest Hour and Paris Threatened) can be executed, and there is no Occupation issue for West units as there is for Axis units in foreign countries. Here is the final position at the end of the West Faction turn on turn 1:

At the end of the turn there are two things that happen - managing the Delay Box as well as advancing the turn track. The Axis Sub Fleet rolls a 2 with no DRMs and so is placed in the May-June turn box. The Brits get lucky with their Surface Fleet and roll a 1, modified by -1 to 0, so it returns to the Apr-May turn box and will be available right away. The last unit is the Axis Airborne unit, which rolls a 6 and will be out for the rest of the scenario.

Finally, the turn marker advances, flips to the Axis Turn side, and a few units go to their respective force pools - The Axis get the 1st Panzer army and the 18th army (which we were waiting to build next turn), while the Brits get their Surface Fleet back and a CV fleet back, as well as a Polish Colonial unit from the fall of Poland. Sadly it will not see action as the Brits have no replacements coming in.

Apr-May is a Mud turn, so that will have several effects on the game, the main one being that it's hard to conduct an offense in Mud. As such this will primarily be a preparation turn for both sides. Here's a rundown of what Mud does in this scenario:

Air units can only be placed at sea and doesn't provide shifts in combat;
EZOCs become *very* sticky - no leaving them under any circumstances.
Blitz Combat is not allowed
Defenders get a shift to their benefit on the CRT, and;
No exploitation (but you can advance into the defender's hex if vacated)

In other words, a bad time to invade France. That's OK, we have a good Option card for doing that next turn. For now, there's not much point in doing much besides placing the supply convoy to Norway, combining some units, and getting ready to invade next turn. It is possible for Norway to become a battleground with the two UK fleets available, but for our purposes we'll stick to history.

If you remember, we held off on combining some of the one-steppers last turn because we were waiting for better units to come along, and two of them have. Using the formula on the Axis Force Pool, we combine the infantry and tank step just west of Hamburg to create the 1st Panzer 5-4-4 tank army, then combine the other 2-2-4 tank unit in the space to bring it to full strength. Similarly, we build up the 18th Army using the steps in the hex west of Kassel.

During movement, I finish up by moving the 18th to Koln, the three 1-2-3 infantry in Frankfurt to Bremen (to build next turn), the Sou HQ and 1-2-3 infantry in Kassel one hex to the west, the 2-2-4 tank unit in the Ruhr up to the hex just east of Rotterdam, and the 8-6-4 tank army west of Hamburg to the Ruhr. I also bring the 2-2-4 tank unit in Hamburg down to the hex west of Kassel. I don't engage in any combat, nor do I see a point in reserve movement. I keep the 1-2-4 mountain unit in Hamburg just in case the Brits get ideas with an invasion, but Frankfurt is safe for this turn, as is Munich.

At the end of the Axis faction turn, I see no reason to declare war on BH, as I'll get to at the start of the next turn with the Case Yellow Option Card, and there are no conditional events, permanent or otherwise, to execute, and that ends the Axis turn. Here's the situation at this point:

The West faction turn is similarly set up. There's really no need for support units, better to save them for the coming turns. There are only two combinations, flipping one of the two 1-1-2 French infantry steps in Verdun to it's two step side, removing the other step to the Force Pool. The other creates the AA multi-national army in Paris, so in this case we take the French 1-1-2 step and put it in the special Minor Infantry Step box in the Western Force Pool. With a very few multinational units, the minor nation unit used to build the larger unit is not available for building elsewhere, as it is for most multi-step units.

Movement is even simpler - move the Br 1-2-2 infantry in Le Havre to Lille to help bulk up the line. The French HQ is positioned to protect any stack of units from Metz to Calais, although it will only be able to protect one per combat phase. At this point, the West has done all it can do and the turn is over once the Br 3-4-2 infantry unit, the Ge 6-6-3 infantry, and the Axis Sub Fleet have gone to their respective Force Pools as the turn marker advances to the May-June turn space.

As you can see, some turns go much more quickly than others. The key lesson to take from this is that war, even at this level, has a tempo, with build-ups that eventually lead to campaigns. Once the materiel and forces involved in a campaign are spent, you need to build back up. The obvious times to do this fit in with the calendar and how seasonal weather affects operations.

Here is the map just before Case Yellow is to kick off in our next installment:

I should also note, in case it is not clear, that I am a rank novice at this game. As such, the choices I am making are probably not optimal because I simply haven't learned enough yet to make really good choices. That said, I'm hoping that by going through this exercise I *am* finding various things that *will* point out good practices, such as how to invade Norway. I spent quite a bit of time figuring out how to get the Airborne unit up there, learning as I went that it needed to be in supply when it landed, so it needed the supply convoy as well as to be in a port that would qualify as an Open Port. I expect I'll make similar discoveries in Case Yellow.

AE:TK - Fall Of France Axis Turn 1

2011-12-01T12:58:00.001-08:00

Let's do this thing...

All screenshots can be selected and clicked to see a larger image.

The starting position on Mar-Apr 1940:

Here you can see that the Axis is ready to advance into Denmark, but there is no airborne unit on the map. Fortunately, the Axis is given the Operations Weseruebung card that will allow for some replacement steps, one of which can be the airborne unit.

The option card also allows the Axis to declare war immediately on a Neutral Country, so long as that country is reachable by the Axis this turn (the conditions are more specific, but that's the general gist of it). Clearly, the target will be DN so as to not give the Brits a chance to get their units into the country. The Axis ~~will also get to~~ may instead roll on the Diplomatic Incident table, which just makes things crazier. Note that at this time, the Axis places the Case Yellow card as the pending card for the next seasonal turn in May-June. The scenario, like Barbarossa, dictates what option cards are being played, but in the campaign games you choose any card that meets the necessary criteria (or that, you hope, will by the time it gets turned over).

Moving through the steps given on the option card, first the Axis Declares War, which results in the DN forces being set up after determining who controls the country. Since there is no Soviet faction in this scenario, that means it's the Western Allies, who place the country marker and the 0-1-2 Res infantry unit in their force pool. Since that's the only unit for that country, no units are placed on the map. DN is now an Activated Western Minor Country.

[Edit: The Axis actually choose between Delclaring War and rolling on the Diplomatic Incident Table. Since Declaring War is the logical step in this sequence for the Axis, and since the Diplomatic Incident Table roll I made ended up with no result, this worked out for the purposes of the example, but it is important to note those two little words "one of' on the card text! My apologies for any confusion.]

Let's pretend for a minute that the Axis decided to roll on the Diplomatic Incident table instead, and gets a 3 - Coup d'Etat! This would be awesome except for the fact that the Allied Crusade is in the +1 box, so that means we subtract one from the total to get a result of Neutrality. Per 15.27, because there is no Influence or Neutrality marker in DN, one is placed in Oslo. Per 14.23, you only place a Neutrality marker in a Neutral country, so in this case nothing happens.

Note that the Option Card says to do all of this in the Option Card Segment rather than in the Political Events segment. This is good, because it means we can tailor the replacements the card gives us to the task of taking DN. Also note that because all of the events on the card are within the red box, they will only apply to this turn and will be ignored in the next turn. However, the Axis player does get a single Blitz counter to place in his Support Units box for use in both this turn and the next.

There is no Logistics or Partisan phase as the Axis don't have these markers in it's force pool, so it's on to replacements. The Axis gets one panzer and four infantry steps, but if he wants to bring on the airborne unit to invade Norway and it will cost two infantry steps. The following picture shows the board position at the end of the Seasonal Phase.

Units with red flags in their upper left corner were placed this turn in Hamburg and Munich. Locations closer to France are unavailable because of stacking limitations.

Next up is the Initial Admin Phase, which contains three segments. The first, the Political Events Segment, is skipped because there are no events listed for that segment on the Option Card. The second segment is the Support Segment, which we will spend a little time on.

Since there are no support units on the board to be removed, and no beachheads, we skip the first two steps in this segment and go straight to the support unit placement.

[Edit: I made a major mistake in this section regarding the air units - they only cancel an open port if the hex is within three hexes of their own Naval Base, which is not the case here. In any event, the idea that the Axis needed to cancel open ports is not necessary for reasons that occur later. As such, I have revised this section tremendously. Please ignore the Naval Zone Box and what it contains going forward]. The Axis have five units in their support unit box - a Troop/Supply convoy, three Air Force units, and a Sub Fleet. The Sub Fleet has a downward pointing arrow behind the unit symbol, so that means it cannot contest a support unit placement.We have two choices - the Strategic Warfare box to allow our delay units to come back a bit faster, or the North Sea On Station box.

What exactly a successfully placed Sub Fleet would do for us takes a bit of digging. In order for a Convoy to transport a step, the destination port must be an Open Port. However, an enemy Fleet (of which the Sub Fleet qualifies) in the On Station box of that Naval Zone denies this status to the destination port. However, only the Sub Fleet will affect any Open Ports west of Rotterdam, and it can be easily countered by the Surface Fleet. Better to place the Sub Fleet in the Strategic Warfare box to threaten the advantage the Allies hold because of the Allied Crusade being in the +1 VP box on that track.

At this point, the Western faction has the opportunity to contest the Sub Fleet's placement, and has two choices of how to do it: their Home Surface Fleet or their 1st Air Force. Both can be placed as there is a Western Faction Naval Base in both Southampton and London. Note that because the units are British, the base must be British. The rules are a bit unclear as to whether or not Calais constitutes a British Naval Base, a French naval Base, or both (it has units of both nationalities), but it doesn't matter in this case The Brits decide to use their Surface Fleet to contest the placement of the German Sub Fleet, so both go to the Naval Warfare Delay Box immediately. Because they were removed due to contested support unit placement, they do not go to the normal Delay Box. The difference is that the NW Delay Box can result in a significantly longer delay before both are again available. The Brit decided not to use the air unit as they want it available for combat.

Now the Axis player has to decide if he wants to place any Air Force units, but there's no burning reason to do so. There's no reason for land combat this turn, as all the Axis wishes to do is take DN, so they keep their units in the Force Pool.

There is still one more unit the Axis wants to place, and that's the Supply Convoy unit, which goes in the Convoy box. Note that the Allies have a notional convoy unit in the box already due to the North Sea having a lot of shipping going on by the Brits to supply their units in France. Having an Axis support unit On Station in the North Sea Zone would not have changed anything as all that the Axis had left was Air units and they could not close the Open Ports in either Great Britain or in France. We use a supply convoy because we will be using the Airborne unit to capture Oslo and it will need to be in supply.

Because we will need to have the Airborne unit Blitz-Enabled, we place the marker in Copenhagen in anticipation of the Airborne unit being where we'll need it.

Here is the portion of the map affected by the Support Unit Placement segment. Note that only two new counters are on the map, one in the North Sea Naval Zone box, and one Blitz marker in Copenhagen. Note the printed Western convoy marker in the Convoy box. [Note: remember that the Air Force unit is not present despite the picture.]

Next up is the Organizational Segment. Of the five steps in this segment, the only one of any interest at this time is Combination, and even that isn't too critical, but we might as well do it now. I combine the two infantry steps in Munich to form the Sou HQ at the two step level, but I decline to build up the two stacks of three one-step infantry just west of Kassel and in Frankfurt. Why? Because right now I have my weaker infantry units in the pool, but by the time I invade France I will have two stronger infantry units and there's no point in combining and then breaking down for now. There is very little chance of the French attacking me, they simply don't have the units to do so and cannot declare war on BH anyway because we are in Limited War. I really didn't even need to combine the infantry for the Sou HQ, but we will want it for the attack into France so I might as well get it started, and it will function as a placement point for replacements too. I will not show a picture as so little has changed on the map.

On to movement! There are really only a couple of things we need to get into place for movement, both of which are intended to conquer DN this turn. First, we move the 1Flg Airborne unit to the northern tip of the Danish peninsula in anticipation of dropping it during Blitz combat. Next we take the 1-2-3 inf in Kiel and move it via rail to Copenhagen. Note that because this is a Connected strait we move at the road/rail rate and arrive in Copenhagen with no problems. For now, we'll leave all of the other units where they are other than moving the Sou HQ unit to Nurnberg. This picture shows the units in Denmark getting ready to move into Norway. Note that the troop Convoy unit should be a Supply Convoy for reasons that will be clear shortly.

Next up is the Blitz Combat Phase. The first step in this phase is where we flip over the Airborne unit to the Airdrop marker side. Note that only the Airborne and the one-step inf in Copenhagen are Blitz Enabled, but we really only need the Airborne enabled for this turn. We do the Airdrop step by flipping the counter to it's Airdrop Marker side (the marker part is important), then we move it two hexes to Stavanger. Note that this path can't go over a Prohibited hex, which would be Prohibited to a ground unit, but because this is a marker we can do it. What we could not do is trace through a Neutral country, such as Sweden.

There is no Blitz combat as no enabled units are in a position to fight. However, we will perform the Airdrop Landing step, and we will see why it was important to have a supply convoy in the North Sea. In order to perform an Airdrop Landing successfully, the Airdrop marker must be supplied and not stacked with an enemy unit. Because an Airdrop marker in a port qualifies it as an Open Port and we have a Supply Convoy running in the North Sea, the marker is supplied. It is removed to the Delay Box, and replaced with a one-step infantry unit from the Force Pool. We have no regular combat, so we move straight to the Reserve Movement Phase.

Since we don't want the Brits putting the DN Res unit in Oslo and would much rather just conquer the joint already, we move the one-stepper in Stavanger to Oslo via the rail. Note that during Reserve Movement, the unit would not get the increased road/rail rate because DN is still an Active enemy country. At this point, DN is not yet conquered. Just because, we also move the Sou HQ from Nurnberg to Kassel.

At this point, we are at the Final Admin Phase. The Axis doesn't want the West futzing with the BH units just yet, so while they could declare war they choose not to. This leaves the Conditional Event Phase, and while there are no conditional events on the Option Card, there is one "permanent" conditional event that we can execute and that's Allied Minor Conquest. 16.1.1 lays this out fully, but the essence is that the West puts the DN Res unit and country marker into the Western Conquered Minor Countries Box on their Force Pool. Because there are no Brit "colonial" units for DN, the West doesn't get any of these units. Also, no lands become ceded as a result of this conquest, so DN is now officially conquered rather than active. Note that even though the Axis took a strategic hex in Oslo, the VP won't change for a couple of turns. This is the only conditional event, so that's it for the Axis.

Here is the final position on the map at the end of the Axis Player Turn. Again, the Troop Convoy should be on it's Supply Convoy side.

A lot happened this turn, but most of it dealt with support units and special function units. We learned a great deal about the sequencing of declaring war on and conquering a minor country, as well as placing support units, the importance of supply, and airdrop operations. Amazingly, we were able to capture DN in one player turn because of both the use of an Option card to allow us to declare war, as well as having an airdrop unit available. The alternative, which the West is faced with if it wants to take Norway back, is to create a Beachhead using a Fleet, but it's in the Delay Box so Norway is safe so long as we garrison the capital. Unfortunately, even taking a strategic hex, the Allies still have cred with the minors through the VP track and will until the start of the summer campaign season when that marker is adjusted.

The next installment will include the action through the end of Apr-May, as little will happen compared to this player turn.

AE:TK - The Fall of France Runthrough - Intro

2011-12-01T11:51:00.001-08:00

I've discussed some of the things I've been learning while going through the training scenarios in Axis Empires: Totaler Krieg. So far we've covered Case White and Barbarossa, now it's time to go into a little more depth and display the basics of the game through a multi-part session report on scenario A.3, The Fall Of France, but first I'll discuss the new rules and mechanisms introduced in this training scenario.

The major addition in this scenario is neutral minor countries, but we'll also be paying more attention to an increased set of support units (primarily naval), airdrops, and how to conquer a minor.

This scenario begins in Mar-Apr of 1940, so the Germans get to try to conquer three different minor countries! They aren't the countries you might think of at first blush - Denmark-Norway (one country), Belgium-Holland (one country) and France. Luxembourg doesn't even rate a hex, sucks to be them. The German goal is to flip the marker on the VP track to the Axis Tide side, which will require them capturing three strategic hexes - Oslo, Antwerp, and Paris.

A quick look at the VP track shows us why this is the case. The marker starts on the Allied Crusade side, and since the Axis haven't captured any Soviet or Western strategic hexes, that means the marker goes on the +1 box, meaning 0 to -5 strategic hexes captured by the Axis. If they capture one or two, the marker would go to the 0 box, but the marker won't flip until they've captured their third strategic hex, which moves it back to the +1 box but on the Axis Tide side. Something to be said for momentum, I guess.

In this scenario, France (a minor country) is at war but Denmark-Norway (DN) and Belgium-Holland (BH) are neutral. Before the Axis can move in and start rearranging the furniture, they will need to declare war on these countries. There are a couple of ways they can do this, but as you may remember from the Barbarossa discussion one is much better than the other, and that is to do it via an option card at the start of the Axis turn rather than during the War and Peace segment at the end of the turn. The difference is that your opponent doesn't get a chance to react much when using an option card, plus there can be some advantages if there are rolls on a Political table. Or sometimes disadvantages. All part of the fun!

Once a neutral minor has had war declared on it, there is a series of steps you go through to decide if that minor aligns with the Soviets or the West, some things that happen that are beyond the scope of this scenario if the country has certain statuses, and then units get placed on the map if there are enough of them. It's a pretty straightforward process in this scenario.

Minors are conquered once the enemy faction controls all of their cities during the conditional event phase. At that point their units are removed from the board and placed in the Conquered Minor Country Forces box in the Force Pool of the faction they are aligned with (so Poland's units go to the Western Allies Force Pool in a historical game). Very specific things have to happen to get that nation's forces back on the board, and they are outside the scope of this scenario.

For DN, this means taking Copenhagen and Oslo. For BH, it means Antwerp and Rotterdam. For France, it would normally be very difficult to take every city, but fortunately for the Axis they have the Case Yellow card to play, which means that if they control Paris or any three cities in France while that's the active card, they can invoke the Case Yellow conditional event which has it's own rules. No matter how hard you try, you just can't get past the unusual situation that was the Fall of France when it comes to ETO wargames.

While we saw the use of convoys in Barbarossa, now we see actual naval forces, including the possibility of a carrier-based air strike. It is also possible for a naval invasion to be carried out, but extremely unusual. In general, naval support units work much as their air units do - they have to be able to trace to an Open Port in their home country, they need to have Open Ports or Naval Bases in sea zones between the port of origin and their destination zone, and they need a Naval Base in the zone they end up in. They may go into a hex (if they're going to make a CV Strike or place a Beachhead) or "on station" in the zone which limits enemy naval activity. As with air units, naval support unit placement can be contested. The permutations are a bit overwhelming, but fortunately there's a very good play aid that covers all support units, their placement, and what they do, as well as reminding you of the definitions of Naval Bases and Open Ports.

The other new thing is Airdrops, which happen during the Blitz segment. In a nutshell, you have Paratroop units that you can use in an Airdrop within X hexes of their current spot by flipping the unit to it's Airdrop Marker side. After Blitz combat, they are dropped in the space in question, but in the meantime they can cut off retreat. The obvious spot for such a thing in this game is Oslo, which means the Axis doesn't need to cross water in boats, although I'm sure we'll be able to find other uses if that isn't necessary.

The only other thing that gets introduced is a few more conditional events, such as Their Finest Hour, Paris Threatened, Allied Minor Power Conquest, and of course Case Yellow.

The scenario is also good practice for when France gets invaded, of course, which is the other big milestone for the Axis (usually). The invasion of Scandinavia also gives the Axis a chance to compare going after a very weak country that benefits from geography vs a stronger minor with weak geography.

We'll take a look at the first German turn in the next installment.

AE:TK - Barbarossa Learning Experiences

2011-11-30T14:17:00.001-08:00

In our last episode, we went through the Axis Empires: Totaler Krieg learning scenario Case White and discussed some of the trickier elements of the game introduced in that scenario. The second learning scenario in the box concerns the Barbarossa invasion of 1941, and adds many new elements, but not enough to be overwhelming. This essay will discuss the trickier parts of that scenario, both in terms of understanding the rule as well as the application of the rule.

Several new rules are introduced, but we will focus on Option Cards, Supply, Minor Allies and shifting territory, and the expanded Sequence of Play that the previous scenario ignored.

Perhaps the most important core concept in AE:TK is the Option Cards. Each Faction (Axis, Western Allies, and Soviets) have a deck of these cards, divided into Pre-War, Limited War, and Total War subdecks. Pre-War are used until war breaks out (historically this was the German invasion of Poland), in which case everyone is at Limited War until Germany ends up in two front war. There are a lot of variations, but that's the basic idea.

On every seasonal turn (every second turn, with a three turn gap in the summer) you play a card face down that you will reveal at the *next* seasonal turn, which is called your "pending" card. At the same time, you reveal your previous "pending" card as your active card. These cards vary widely in their effects, from focusing on building up your army, to making diplomatic overtures, to running major (or minor) campaigns. Reinforcement units are often received, replacements are placed, various tables may be consulted. It is important to note that most cards have requirements for certain board conditions or previous option cards to have been played (or not) in order to play them. If a card doesn't meet the requirements, it goes back in your hand, but you don't get the benefit of the card, so this is a good thing to pay close attention to. Also, playing a card will often remove other cards from your deck, so by doing one thing you give up the opportunity to do another.

Option cards also grant Blitz markers for each turn that season, and also effects that can extend to other turns. Anything in a red box only happens during the Seasonal turn, anything outside it can be used every turn that card is the active card. For example, the Germans get replacements with their Operation Barbarossa card, but only in the seasonal turn. In contrast, the Russians will often get "conditional" replacements that come at the end of their turn, but on every turn.

The cards include the time when they were historically played, so you can simply use that sequence rather than try to go off of the reservation, and the authors suggest doing that in your first campaign game or two if you wish. However, the real joy of this game is in fact trying different paths. You'll almost certainly still invade Russia at some point as the Germans, but otherwise all sorts of things could go differently.

In the Barbarossa scenario, each side is given two option cards to play and specific turns to play them. This gives you the experience of seeing how they work without having to deal with more than 50 cards to choose from.

I should also note that the important things about the option cards in this scenario are what Blitz counters you get, what reinforcements go to your Force Pool, and how you place replacements. Replacements go to cities in your Home Country (or to HQs in your home country) and you'd be surprised how few of these there are. Because of the three unit stacking limit, and also because at the start of this scenario the Germans are pretty far forward, that means you'll probably want to get these units down but not combine them until they get to the front. It's also why the errata'd scenario book calls for you to use the West Map so that you can see where the German cities are. However, after the first turn you don't need that map anymore, so you can pick it up and use the game tracks located on the cards used for the one-map scenarios. Note that these German replacements can come in in Czechoslovakia, Austria, the Polish Corridor, and Germany, but not in Poland, Rumania, or Hungary. Or Finland for that matter.

Next up is Supply. If there is a part of this game that I feel like I'm doing wrong, it is supply. Unlike many games, AE:TK treats supply as you go, so if a unit is out of supply at the moment it would need to know whether or not it was in supply, that's when you check. There are no OoS markers as a result, which I appreciate - in fact, TK has relatively few markers that relate to unit status, making counter density very manageable.

Supply has different effects on different units in different situations, and while these are all nicely organized in the Supply rules, I am very happy to say that the developers put in a great summary on the same sheet as the CRT is on for each player. They do not detail what constitutes a supply line, but really it's not terribly difficult - you trace back to a city in your Home Country. Also important is that friendly ground units cancel out EZOCs for purposes of supply, as in many games.

A supply path is traced from the unit back to a supply source, which is either a city in that unit's Home Country, a friendly supply depot, or for the Russians the eastern edge of the board. There are also off-map boxes that represent areas like the Middle East or Central Asia that can be supply sources. It is also possible to use a Supply Convoy (a type of support unit) to trace supply providing there are Open Ports (ports with friendly ground units in them) in the area. A unit can trace two hexes over any non-prohibited terrain to a road or rail hex, and from there back to the supply source via road/rail. Only one contiguous section of road can be involved, and the path can cross one connected strait in lieu of the road section. The line can't pass through cities in conquered or enemy countries unless a friendly unit is there to control it.

For our purposes, being out of supply creates the following affects based on the unit type and where we are in the SoP:

Armor units don't get a column shift during Blitz combat,
HQ units can't support at range, and don't get a column shift (not mentioned in the Case White essay, but an important part of combat),
HQ units can't be a replacement location,
Ground units can't create an Air Base or Naval Base,
Ground units can't combine,
Ground units can't move in the Operational (normal) Movement Phase - this is particularly big, and
Ground units can't advance after combat or exploit.

There are other effects, but they aren't part of this scenario.

Here's why this is a little weird. Let's say that the Germans bypass a couple of Russian units during their invasion, and these units are placed out of supply. If the Russians wish, those units can sit there for the entire game doing nothing but blocking rail lines. They can't move during OpMovement, but they can move during Reserve Movement, assuming there isn't a unit projecting an EZOC to stop them. They can attack normally, with no dings to any combat factors.

I find this a little crazy, but like most things in AE:TK, there are times when the purpose of the rule becomes more apparent. In the case of supply, the basic idea is that quite often those units can be better used elsewhere, and the player has the chance (after combining but before breaking down units) to simply pick these units up off the board and place them in either their force pool or delay box as appropriate. For an army like the Soviets, this works out well because their basic infantry units are one-steppers on their flip sides, and have no delay stripe so they go straight back to the force pool. That's handy because a *lot* of Soviet option cards given replacements every turn, and some give a *lot* (like 21 steps). Whether it's more important to have these units behind the lines tying up dinky units and interrupting supply or to place them on the map to slow down the Germans is a good question for the Soviet player.

That said, this just feels wrong to me. Bypassing enemy formations is a basic element of blitzkrieg tactics, and while I understand we're at the level of armies (and army groups, for the Soviets), every other game on the east front uses supply rules that knock armies out, and fairly quickly. I suspect there are other reasons why out of supply units are generally returned to the force pool fairly quickly, but in my play it seemed more like I was creating problems in my backfield rather than forcing hordes of Soviets to surrender.

Of course, a big part of the Barbarossa scenario is to teach you to manage your supply effectively so that you can use those Blitz counters and tank units more effectively, not to mention the limitations of the road/rail net in Russia. Russia is a big place and while there are a lot of rail lines present, at the same time there are some areas, particularly in the far north and south, that will have very limited rail nets. That's a good thing. At one point, I found myself looking at a situation where I could advance a few hexes after combat with a few units, and between trying to set myself up for bringing in replacement steps as well as making sure everyone would be in supply, it was a bit of a trick. The player who can see these situations in advance will have an advantage, obviously.

Next up is the inclusion of Minor Countries, allies, and shifting ownership of land. First of all, there are three types of land in AE:TK: countries, dependents, and regions. Countries are areas of land with associated units. Austria, at the beginning of the game (assuming you start in 1937) is a country, as it has it's own units. During the game, the Axis can play a Hitler Demands Austria option card that will almost certainly result in Austria being "ceded" to Germany. At this point, Austrian land becomes part of Germany and Vienna is German Home City. Later, if the Axis does the same with the Polish Corridor (the area around Danzig), and war results with Poland and Poland is conquered by the Axis (as happened historically), the Polish Corridor is ceded and becomes German, but the rest of Poland (possibly excepting East Poland if the Russians have an agreement with the Germans) becomes a Conquered Minor Country and has to go through certain conditions and steps to become an Active Minor Country in the future. The Axis will need to garrison Polish cities in order to trace supply through them. Interestingly, if the Soviets take East Poland, it becomes ceded to them, and is treated as though it is Russian Home territory until some other event takes place that changes that status.

Note that the Polish Corridor noted above is not a country - it is a "region" which means it does *not* have units associated with it. Similarly, there are areas on the map that also don't have units associated with them that are called "dependents". The basic difference is that a dependent has a country that it is directly associated with, while a region is part of a larger dependent or country. There are many references in the rules to countries, and it's important to remember that these references do not apply to regions or dependents unless explicitly stated.

An important aspect of minor countries that you are allied with is that you can't just go traipsing through them with units from other countries. For example, the Hungarians can't run around in Rumania, that just makes the Rumanians mad. The Germans have a little easier time of it, but they can't leave multi-step units floating around or else they become interned, which means you don't get them back until the start of the next season. The Germans instead need to either leave their units broken down as single-steppers, or else perform an emergency breakdown from the multi-step units at the end of the turn, which of course sends the multi-step unit to the delay box.

The Barbarossa scenario gives a perfect example of how this works. At the start of the scenario, there are three 1-2-3 infantry units stacked in one hex in Rumania on the border with Bessarabia, a region that was ceded to Russia due to an earlier option card play. At the start of the Axis turn, these three units can be combined into a multi-step infantry unit, and if you intend to attack with them this is an excellent idea. However, if at the end of the turn they are still in Rumania (which does *not* include Bessarabia at this point), they must either be broken down at the end of the German turn or else interned on the pending option card, either of which is going to take a multi-step unit out of your force pool for some time, possibly the rest of the scenario. Best to leave them be if you aren't attacking with this group in the first turn. You can also "occupy" the minor, but that creates a lot more problems that it's worth, essentially turning that country into an ally of your opponents. There are times when this makes sense, but Barbarossa isn't one of them.

I really like this rule, as it reflects that while Rumania and Germany were allied and had similar world views and enemies, at the same time it also shows that they were separate countries. Think of how happy Canada would be if US troops wandered around willy nilly, fighting moose and polar bears as they went. You can do a lot of things with a minor country, but it doesn't make that country *your* country, as in many other grand strategic games.

Finally, this scenario adds in most of the rest of the Sequence of Play. Most obvious is the Seasonal Phase, where you play Option cards, but also the placement of convoys (both troop and supply - you'll need these to get Russians to Murmansk and the German 20th Mtn to combine with a Finn ski unit), and exposure to Conditional Events, which warrant a bit more discussion.

Conditional Events take place at the end of the player turn after everything else is done, including declarations of war. There are two types of conditional events, those that are dictated by the Option card in play (this includes non-seasonal replacements), and those that occur when the right situation exists. All Force Pool cards hold units for these conditions, which include things like Their Finest Hour (which affects the British when things get exciting in and around France) and, most importantly for this scenario, Russian Emergency Mobilization. The conditions for these events and what you do once they occur are listed on the Force Pools in brief and in the rules in detail, but they mostly consist of you following a series of steps with few decisions to make. This is a nice way of creating some of the "out of the book" situations that occurred historically.

The final thing that comes up in the sequence of play is the Delay Box. Any striped unit that ends up there over the course of the entire turn (which runs Axis-Western-Soviet) has a die rolled to see how many turns, modified by several possible situations, it is until the unit comes back to the Force Pool. For example, in Barbarossa the Germans have four strategic hexes belonging to the other factions (all on the West map per the special rule for the scenario) and thus have a -1 drm. A unit being rolled for in the May-June turn that gets a three result, would be placed two turns ahead on the turn track, in this case July-August, whern it would be placed in the Force Pool when the turn marker moves into that space. That means an Air Force unit placed on turn X would go to the Delay Box during Unit Removal on turn X+1 and could conceivably be available for placement again anytime between turn X+2 to X+7 depending on the roll and the DRMS (which could push it out even further if things are going badly in that department). Many of the markers you'll place in the Strategic Warfare box in this game will affect the Delay roll.

While these were relatively minor rules changes, I should also note the expanded use of support units. In this scenario, that meant that you now have convoys, which allow for very limited troop movement or supply lines across seas, as well as Russian interceptor units, which can "contest" placement of Air Force units as well as other support units that aren't in this scenario. Contesting simply means that the Germans place an Air Force unit, and the Soviets can use their interceptor (assuming it is in range of an Air Base) to send both it and the Air Force unit to the Delay Box.

The victory conditions are such that the Germans need to take three Strategic (red-bordered) Soviet cities in five turns, which they did not do historically - they took Minsk and Kiev, but failed at Moscow. While Germans were beginning the operations that would lead to the sieges of Leningrad and Sevastopol, these did not really get underway until after the timeframe of this game, which more or less ends with Operation Typhoon. To win you need three strategic hexes, and they are far and few between.

In playing the Barbarossa scenario, I discovered that bypassing units had it's charms but needed to be done judiciously so as not to put Russians in your backfield where you have to spend precious combat cycles attacking them. At the same time, the Russians have two HQs that need to be eliminated quickly if you want to advance quickly, or else they provide defense factors and column shifts in both the Blitz and the Normal Combat phases. You rarely have enough units to get more than a few combats at 4-1, which you generally want at a minimum. Creating combats in the Blitz segment that allow units to get up close to those HQs will make a big difference as they go through the Delay Box rather than back to the Force Pool, as Sov infantry does. This should be your first priority in the first turn.

After that, it will be easier to go through the Soviet infantry units, although there are a lot of replacements showing up. It's the Emergency Mobilization units, sent to the Delay box on the first turn as the Germans invade, that will either give you headaches or else pave the way to Moscow. Lots of low results will hurt, lots of high results will keep the units out of the scenario entirely.

Once you've broken through the line and taken Minsk and Kiev, you'll need to proceed very carefully to take Moscow. For one thing, the last turn of the scenario has Mud weather, and that causes quite a few problems, the least of which is that you won't have any air power and you can't escape EZOCs, even if there's a friendly unit in the hex with you. Forget Blitz combat too. However, you can use the one Blitz marker you get for Operation Typhoon to make Moscow an open city (or Leningrad, wherever you happen to be looking for that third strategic hex) so that the Russians can't just load up six steps and refuse to retreat.

You will also want to pay careful attention to supply - it's especially important as there is no specific supply phase to remind you to do so. Also note that you can't use single-step road movement in reserve movement in an enemy country, so pretty much everything from Warsaw east.

While the Finns don't really get much steam up in this game, it's worthwhile to send that German Mtn unit up to Finland to build the 20th Mtn, as mentioned above. Note that the Finn ski unit goes on the force pool display in the appropriate box, it does *not* go to the Force Pool (as it would normally). This is true for any of the special builds on your Force Pool display, which usually involve counters from minor countries. If there's a holding box, the unit goes in it when you make the combination.

I'll also note that the Russian mech cavalry can be built pretty easily, and you simply need a mech unit (not necessarily a tank) to combine with the one-step cavalry unit. These aren't all that much more useful than infantry, but they can give you a shift in blitz combat and are a little quicker on their feet. Or hooves.

The Russians get Blitz markers for the first few turns, one per turn, but they are difficult to use because the Russians are mostly just trying to keep a cohesive line and protect that last strategic hex. They are perhaps most useful when the Germans barely take a strategic hex and the Russians can force them out by turning the hex into an Open City with the Blitz counter. Otherwise, the Russians aren't going to be doing an awful lot of attacking, and they have few armor units that can take advantage of Blitz combat. They get no Blitz markers at all the last two turns of the game, although they do get 21 (!) replacement infantry steps. If you wanted a good reason to pull isolated Russians off of the board, do it on the third turn so that you've got a lot of units poised to protect that last strategic hex.

I also recommend that you play this scenario at least twice. You will learn a lot of what not to do in your first play. Case White was easy enough to do that once you'd finished the scenario you could set it up and try something a little different. Barbarossa will take a little more trial and error, as there are more combats and a lot more choices of how you want to assign support units and Blitz markers, not to mention exercising Combining of steps and garrisoning your backfield.

Barbarossa is also more or less the same starting point for one of the one-map scenarios, Fire in the East, so regardless of which side you'll be playing you'll want to know what constitutes good doctrine. The Germans need an effective Barbarossa campaign to have a chance against the Soviets, so knowing how that works is critical to both sides.

Next, I will start a series of session reports on the third training scenario, the Fall of France, in which I'll also discuss the rules that are introduced in that game as they come up.

AE:TK - Case White Learning Experiences

2011-11-30T12:02:00.001-08:00

The first two training scenarios in AE:TK cover the German invasion of Poland in 1939, called Case White by the Germans in their planning, and Barbarossa, the Axis invasion of Soviet Russia and it's recently ceded or conquered lands in 1941. This essay will cover the trickier rules introduced in Case White.

Case White is a very small and very short scenario, taking only a portion of the Axis player turn, with no concern for mechanisms such as option cards or the delay box. In essence, it is there to give you a good sense of the basics of movement and combat, but also the use of air and blitz support markers. Like the other training scenarios, the authors suggest that you read a small amount of rules (in this case, the glossary of definitions, component descriptions, and overall sequence of play at the start of the rules), and the rules on ZOCs and Stacking. You'll spend more time punching, clipping, and setting up the counters.

The rest of the rules you'll need are intended to be read as you go. As the authors state, this does not make for a fast game, but it does allow you to learn both the rule and the application as you go, and I am finding it to be a very effective method, at least for me. AE:TK has a very large rulebook, and while it's organized well it's not an organization that lends itself to learning right out of the box. For example, all of the rules that are centered around the Sequence of Play come first, followed by housekeeping rules that permeate the game (Supply, Stacking, ZOCs, etc), followed by reference sections on markers, different types of events, and special rules for the usual chrome "rule-breakers" like the fall of France. This organization works well, but not for learning the game. Much better to follow the suggested path, I am finding.

If you are using a table you'll need both maps as Poland is *right* in the middle of it. It's too bad they couldn't have reprinted the map on the back of one of the existing maps (same goes for Barbarossa, which also needs the West map for the first turn in order to place replacement units), but that's a small nit - it's not like the scenario is going to take more than an hour, much less if you know the rules. However, this is something that GMT games has done repeatedly with some of their games, notably the Barbarossa series by von Borries, and perhaps Decision could make small printable maps of the necessary areas for both of these games available on their website to facilitate learning with the physical components (which I almost always prefer).

The major things you learn to do in this scenario are to a) understand the mutable nature of the units and how they "evolve" from single step units to multi-step units; b) understand how Blitz markers and air support units affect the game, and c) learn about the basics of movement and combat. I'll cover each of these separately.

Units in AE:TK are treated differently depending upon whether they are single step or multi-step. A brief perusal of the units shows that while two one-step infantry units (with attack-defense-movement factors of 1-2-3) when stacked together have a composite value of 2-4-3 (as movement doesn't combine), a two step infantry unit will have a value of 3-4-2 (or of 4-4-3, depending on the infantry unit). With three one-step units, the comparison is 3-6-3 compared to 5-6-2 or 6-6-3, which is a marked improvement in attack values. Note also that stacking limits units in a hex to six steps and three units, so you could only fit three one-step units in a hex but two 6-6-3 three-steppers (or three 4-4-3 two steppers, both of which come to a total of 12-12-3 for their factors).

That said, single step units have a lot of uses. They can hold conquered cities to allow supply lines through them, in certain types of hexes they can create Air and Naval Bases and Open Ports to allow various operations, and they move at double speed along road and rail connections so this is a preferable form for units far from the front. They are also the way that replacements come onto the board, which I'll go into in greater depth in a later essay.

Once you get the units to the front, however, it's clear that the much higher attack value and ability to get more steps into a single hex has greater value. What mechanism is used to convert these single-step units into multi-steppers, and vice versa when mobility is more important than step density and attack power? The answer is in the Combine/Breakdown segments early in the player turn.

Before understanding how that mechanism works, however, you must understand how each country's potential armed forces are managed. Each player has a Force Pool display that dictates what units are available for use during the game. Units are added to the Force Pool as Option Cards are played, and once in the Force Pool they can be placed on the board depending on how large the unit is in terms of steps. Single step units are placed during Replacements, while multi-step units are placed as the result of Combining smaller units. In many cases, you will flip a single step unit to create a two-step unit, while in others you replace two single-step units (that have nothing on their reverse side) with a two-step unit that has a three step unit on it's back. UK forces are a good example of the former, German forces a good example of the latter.

In the sequence of play, the order goes like this: Replacements are placed (during seasonal turns, every two or three turns in the game) according to the option card selected during the previous seasonal turn. These go, in general, on a city or HQ unit in your Home Country (which I'll discuss in more detail in the Barbarossa discussion). The next step in this process is to Combine units, which is surprisingly straightforward. For example, let's say that you have placed three 1-2-3 German infantry units in Berlin. During the combination step, you look at your Force Pool and see that you have a few units you'd like to build, but right now the main one is a new HQ. Since HQs aren't defined as to how they are built on your Force Pool sheet, you use infantry steps. Curing the Combine step, you take two 1-2-3 infantry units and replace them with the two-step HQ from your Force Pool. The 1-2-3 infantry units do not have a white or black "delay stripe" on them, so they go right back into your Force Pool. Now you have a two step HQ and a one-step infantry unit, and you'd like to bring the HQ to full strength, so you flip the HQ and place the remaining 1-2-3 unit in the Force Pool as it too has no stripe.

This works in the opposite way during the Breakdown step, which comes not long after the Combine step but before any movement. Let's say that we have a three-step infantry unit in Berlin, it's 1942, and we have to get these units a long way into Southern Russia so that we can use it against Stalingrad. Unfortunately, this unit is a 5-6-2, so it's already slow, but it also doesn't get the double movement rate for road/rail it would were it a single-step unit. By far the best option is to break it down to single-step units so that it can move up to six hexes along road/rail rather than two hexes max in it's multi-step form. The first breakdown takes a 1-2-3 unit from the Force Pool and flips the 5-6-2 to it's 3-4-2 two-step side. We still have three steps in the hex, but in a different form. Now we finish the process by taking the 3-4-2 unit and replacing it with two more 1-2-3 units. Note that we couldn't do this if there was a second unit in the hex before we started the breakdown process! The 3-4-2 unit, which has a white delay stripe, is placed in the Delay Box on the map, where it will learn of how long before it returns to the game after all players have taken their turn.

When units lose steps in combat, or indeed at any time you need to break down a unit, you go through the same process. This may seem to be a strange way to manage your armies, but in fact it forces you to plan ahead to some degree. For example, during the Reserve Movement Phase, your main goal, aside from positioning your armies before your opponent moves, is to get your units that aren't in Home Country cities stacked so that you can reform your units at the front. It's a very different system than I've seen in other games, where usually you just get RPs and flip units, but I think it's more realistic given the 30-60 days a turn represents. I'd put it at about two notches below the supply/fuel system in OCS but gives the same type of interruptions to operational tempo, albeit at a much larger scale. When you have units that are getting beat up, you have to pull them out of the line (out of an EZOC) so that one-steppers can come in and combine with them at the start of the next turn.

Combining and breaking down is not a critical element of Case White, but the rule does get introduced (although without replacement units - you start the game with some units that combine early, and of course there is combat) and it is a central feature of the game.

The other core concept that new players may not have seen is that of Support Units. In this case, there are two pieces that get placed: a Blitz Marker and an Air Force Unit. Technically, a Blitz marker is not a support unit, but it is treated much like one in it's core respects.

First on the board is the Air Force unit. The unit must be placed within 3 hexes of an Air Base, which is defined as a city, port, or road/rail hex that contains a friendly unit. For much of the map, that means about half of the hexes could potentially function as air bases, although you need the friendly unit there. Normally the opposing player(s) would have the chance to contest placement of a support unit, but since the Air Force is the only unit of this type in this scenario, we'll leave that for the Barbarossa discussion.

An Air Force unit does some important things, but for our purposes the critical ones are that enemy units can't move or retreat through them, and they give a combat bonus to attacks against units in hexes in or adjacent to the Air Force unit. This is a good point to mention that column shifts are very important in AE:TK, especially at higher odds. The CRT goes from 1:3 up to 1:1, then 3:2, then 2:1 and 3:1, then a column for 4:1 *and* 5:1, 6:1 through 8:1, and finally 9:1+. That means that if you have 3:1 odds and get two column shifts, you are suddenly doing as well as if you had an 8:1 attack. The target odds you want to see are 6:1 to avoid a decent chance of failing in combat, so shifts are important, and judiciously placed Air Force units help.

Perhaps the biggest thing I learned, and it took a little digging, was that support units are not ground units and as such do not project a ZOC. This was, rather obviously in hindsight, in the section on ZOCs, but if you were trying to figure it out by looking in the section on retreats the text won't help. The support unit section, which is rather extensive and admittedly (by the authors) to be the most difficult to learn rules, does say that enemy units can't enter hexes with enemy Air Force support units, but that isn't a ZOC and doesn't work like one. This is an excellent example of why the introduction system works so well and why just reading the whole damned book and then trying it out doesn't. There's too much interaction between the rule and how it's applied to use the latter method.

The other placement is of the Blitz marker. This can be placed *anywhere* on the map, but where it goes is very important for a couple of reasons. The first is that any units within two hexes after Operational Movement may attack in the Blitz Combat Segment that occurs before the Normal Combat Segment. In other words, if your units are within two hexes of this marker, they can attack twice. Since you need to control Posen, Krakow, and Warsaw to win this scenario as the Germans, and since there's a solid line of Polish units in the way to Warsaw, this is an important thing to be able to do. Also, certain types of units present in an attack, such as tanks, will give a column shift during Blitz combat but not during normal combat. One of the key learning elements of the Case white scenario is how to best place these markers/units to your advantage. Note that Air Force units will stay in their hex after placement for a full turn, and then they go to the Delay Box, so very often you will use the unit once and not see it again until a few turns later, at the very least it's gone for a turn. Blitz markers, however, are granted based on the currently selected Option Card, so you get them every turn during that season. Cards like Barbarossa and Case Yellow give up to three Blitz markers to one side or the other. It's entirely possible both sides will get them on their respective turns!

This leaves us with learning about movement and combat. For Movement, I've already mentioned getting your single steppers into place for combining with other single-steppers and reduced multi-step units in anticipation of the next turn, which typically happens during Reserve movement. That phase occurs after combat, but units in EZOCs cannot move, and units can't move into EZOCs. That means you need to be very careful about advancing after combat.

The other critical thing to learn about combat, aside from how important column shifts are, is how units can "exploit" after combat, which is based on the retreat result combined with retreat/attrition results that the losing side can't "pay". Note that EZOCs in this game are "semi-sticky" meaning that you are allowed to move from one EZOC to another, but must immediately stop in that EZOC, which is true of units that start out of EZOCs. Interestingly, friendly units cancel EZOCs for movement, although units must be in supply to move, so moving out of supply stops your movement as well. This encourages you to move one unit 'between" EZOCs so that other units can move through that hex, a very important tactic.

Which leads to one other important element of Blitz counters: Normally, a unit in a city that gets a retreat result can choose instead to convert each hex of retreat to a step loss. If a Blitz marker is in the city hex, however, the unit must retreat. This is very important to knock units out of critical hexes that contain lots of steps.

Otherwise, movement is very straight-forward, and aside from the usual rules for retreats and advances after combat, grognards should find this part of the game to be pretty standard stuff.

I should note that some rules are not addressed at all in Case White, notably Supply. Supply is a little wacky in this game, but I'll cover it in much greater detail when I discuss Barbarossa in my next entry.

You will also find the Case White scenario to be very good at forcing you to learn "doctrine" in AE:TK in a relatively limited setting. The scenario is intended to be a bit of a puzzle, so you may need two or three attempts to succeed. I did on the first try, but my path was far from optimal and I simply got lucky on the last roll. I'll note that you need to "control" the three hexes, which means you need to have German units in them, and given that you must lose tank units first that can lead to situations where a unit that you intended to advance adjacent to Warsaw can't because it has to stay behind to control Krakow or Posen. Since units can't move into EZOCs during Reserve Movement, where your units end up is of critical importance.

Next up, the panzers head east...

Why I'm Learning Axis Empires: Totaler Krieg

2011-11-30T10:58:00.001-08:00

I have a love-hate relationship with WW2 European Theater of Operations (ETO) grand strategic wargames. I'm not talking about The Great Patriotic War, which in the US we refer to as the "East Front" as thought the West Front or even the entire Pacific came anywhere close to the enormous manpower commitments of that massive struggle. I'm talking about the whole shooting match in Europe, from Iberia to the Urals, from Narvik and Murmansk down to Libya. From 1939 or earlier to 1945.

I have several games on the subject: Europe Engulfed, Advanced Third Reich, WW2: Barbarossa to Berlin (which admittedly does not cover the early war), EuroFront, Hitler's War, Struggle for Europe (actually three games that link together), World in Flames, and Totaler Krieg. Of these, the only game that has seen serious table time is WW2:BtB, and a bit of EE.

In comparison, most of the games I own that cover other periods (ACW, ARW, WW1, RCW, Napoleonic Wars, Ancients) tend to be at the grand strategic scale. Paths of Glory, For The People, Napoleonic Wars, War and Peace, Hannibal: Rome vs Carthage, Reds!... Clearly I like the idea of this level of abstraction. I also have a few PTO grand strategic games, such as Asia Engulfed, Empire of the Sun, Victory in the Pacific, and (technically speaking) World in Flames again, although the nature of the conflict (Japanese biting off far more than they had the slightest chance of chewing) makes PTO games less interesting to me.

Why then is the ETO such a hard sell in my case? I believe the reason has to do with the difficult diplomatic situation in Europe in 1939-1941, when every few months saw a new nation drawn into the conflict. 1941 in particular was a little crazy, such as when Yugoslavia's leader sided with the Fascists only to face a coup that ended in an Axis invasion and occupation of the country. Really, how do you go about getting events like that into a game in an interesting yet historically plausible fashion? The same goes for the Russian occupation of the Baltic States, Eastern Poland, the Finnish Border, and Bessarabia - Trying to have rules that deal with areas like Bessarabia are difficult to do as most games treat these as parts of countries. They are also often lumped together into a single event, when historically they were not. The old Third Reich game did this, and treated all four of the Axis Minors as one lump conversion when they were all very different events. Of course, 3R has quarterly turns, so a higher level of abstraction, but still a very unsatisfying feel in my opinion.

To be fair, I do not have a very good idea of how most of the ETO games I have listed above handle diplomatic activities in the early years of WW2. The ones I've investigated, however, seem to start with the idea that the different countries are going to end up on the same sides they did historically with a small amount of variation. There is really very little chance of seeing a country like Yugoslavia do what it did, which was experience a coup d'etat and suddenly change the rules.

I've owned Totaler Krieg, the "sequel" to Krieg!, and liked it's overall approach. While no one is going to call this a "light" game from a rules standpoint, it did take a very interesting approach to the problem. Rather than include lots of rules for diplomacy, it instead takes the novel approach of using rules to set up the environment, then let seasonal option card plays (which set the tone for the next two or three turns in many respects) decide what's going on - rearmament, mobilization, special circumstances (such as the creation of Vichy and the sudden fall of France). The only problem I had with TK is that it was sort of an ongoing work in progress, the components were not great (you tore the cards off of a perforated sheet, the counters were wafer-thin), and in the end it felt a little more like a kit than a game. The insane number of scenarios got a little crazy as well, although I freely admit I like lots of options.

One of the vaporware products that was being worked on by the TK team after it's release was, of course, a PTO companion game that could be played simultaneously. From 1998 or so onward, this game, which even had the title of Dai Senso before I think it had a *map*, has been a legend in the wargaming community, along with the Up Front and PanzerBlitz reimagings. PB finally saw the light of day a couple of years back, but Up Front will probably never be reprinted or reimaged. In 2011, however, both TK and DS finally saw production under the overarching title Axis Empires.

A lot has changed in TK from the "first edition" (which was really a second edition of Krieg), but the basic idea is the same with regards to diplomacy - you play an option card that will give you a roll on a particular table and things may or may not go your way. As the Axis, you can even try to demand that Switzerland be ceded to Germany. The Russians can try to demand the Turkish Straits, as they did in the late 40's at the start of the Cold War. They may get the Baltic States in the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, but not Bessarabia. Just like in the war, everything is a bit of a crap shoot when it comes to diplomacy. You can still just go right ahead and declare war, although if you do it through the normal sequence of play you are giving your opponent the chance to set things up the way he wants them, while if you do it through the political actions of the Option Cards you do it at the start of your turn.

Here's an excellent example: It is March-April of 1940, and the Germans are, as they did historically, going to take Norway, and to do that they need to first take Denmark. There is a card in the Axis deck, Operation Weseruebung, that allows you to declare war on a country that meets certain criteria (in this case, it has to be next to a country that you have units in, which makes Germany an obvious prerequisite) at the start of the turn and then roll on the Diplomatic Incident table. Denmark-Norway is treated as a single country (as is Belgium-Holland), which might rankle some, but at this level they were no competition for the various branches of the German armed forces. In AE:TK, the entire armed forces of both countries is a single "Res" unit with minimal defensive capabilities, and it doesn't even go onto the map until the Western Allies can place it during their turn.

Historically, of course, both the Danes and the Norwegians stood up to the Germans until they were overrun, and most of the time this sort of thing will happen in AE:TK too. However, the option card also calls for a roll on the Diplomatic Incident table, and in this particular instance I rolled a Coup d'Etat, which makes Denmark-Norway immediately an Axis minor country. Kind of a disappointment, as I was looking forward to seeing the airdrop unit in action, but I will save that for invading France in a couple of turns.

This is *exactly* the sort of thing that I find so appealing about AE:TK. Wargamers tend to be control freaks in a lot of ways - with God-like prescience and power, they can do whatever they want with their units, they know that the Russian Winter is coming, they know that Finland, Hungary, Rumania, and Bulgaria will join them in attacking Russia in 1941. Yet all of these things were far from certain, and in some cases were completely unanticipated. As long-time readers of this blog know, I play wargames for four major reasons - the company of my opponent, the simulation of a real world situation and how the various systems work together, the springboard the game creates into my interest of the history of the conflict and/or period, and the literary elements that help the game to tell a story.

It is this last element that makes a particular game memorable (assuming the game is well-crafted and my opponent pleasant and competent). An epic session with lots of turns of fortune and a closely contested outcome is much preferable to a dull game that I win. While the level of variability in AE:TK may not always lend itself to a closely contested outcome, it's fairly certain that I'll enjoy moaning about it right up until I give up after every country in the Balkans has gone to the Allied cause. It's certainly something I'll want to relate in this blog, in a session report on the 'Geek, or to friends. That said, the game is also set up so that you can follow the history closely if you wish to, although the outcomes may not all be identical to history.

I'm sure that some of the other grand strategic ETO games I list above can have this sort of variance. For now, TK seems to handle this in a manner that is pretty graceful and quick (and uncertain). It also has a counter density that I am finding to be very manageable for my stubby and less than dexterous (when it comes to handling counters, anyway) fingers.

I was very interested in TK in it's "original" form back in the day, but the component quality and mutable ruleset kept me from really taking the steps to learn the game in depth. I'm very happy to say that the new Axis Empires edition seems to have a very tight ruleset, with excellent clarifications and examples clearly marked and in-line with the rules, and the designers/developers have taken care to include an excellent roadmap for how to learn the game. I am currently on the third scenario, the Fall of France, and as I began to learn the game it occurred to me that recounting my learning experience would make an excellent series of blog entries that I will make on a turn-by-turn basis. I'm playing this particular game in VASSAL, so very easy to get pictures of the game as well.

I will also make an entry of the things that took me a little more time to fully understand. The rules are, as all good wargame rules should be, intended to be taken literally, as is the card text. That entry will precede the actual game report of The Fall of France, and will cover the things I learned in both Case White and Barbarossa. I hope you find them of some value.

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

2011-11-18T20:48:00.001-08:00

Oh, my. After spending about eight hours over the last two days procuring boxes, tape, bubble wrap, etc to ship out all of the games that were picked up in the JVMF auction, I am *finally* at the point where I've gotten shipping quotes from UPS and USPS. Surprisingly, UPS cost slightly more and took slightly longer for all domestic packages, and was astronomical for international. At one point I just stopped trying to enter the data into the incredibly fussy web page for international destinations.

I'm being very careful to pack every game so that it will stand the best chance of arrival in one piece, which for me means a) the games are all wrapped in bubblewrap, and b) that the box is full so that items won't shift around. Since some boxes are significantly larger than the games by some measure, I was worried that I'd be spending too much on packing peanuts (I'm already at nearly $100 for boxes, bubble, peanuts), and then I got this really great idea.

I have a bunch of expansions for games that I try to consolidate and so have a ton of empty boxes sitting in my closet. I have put those boxes to good use by using them to fill up the shipping packages. The smaller ones (like the small Arkham Horror expansions) are great on the sides, and the larger square ones (like for Dominion expansions) are great on the top. I think the weight is comparable to peanuts, as the boxes are empty, and won't the people getting their games be surprised to find empty game boxes! Ha ha!

I'm also learning that international shipping is a bitch. A cold, heartless, expensive as hell bitch. UPS, assuming I was doing things correctly, was asking around 4x what the USPS was, although for much quicker delivery. Even so, a 7.5 pound box of games measuring 15"x12"x10" will cost over $60 to send to Australia. I know it's a long ways away, and I know fuel is ridiculous, but... Wow. I've asked the four international recipients to go ahead and figure out how they want their packages shipped as I just haven't done this much. I'm also learning that there will be customs forms to fill out with valuations of the games. Whee. And here I was seriously considering moving to Canada in 2004 when Bush was reelected. That would have been a seriously expensive trip.

I figure I've still got about another six hours to go to get all of these games out of the door, including back and forths with the recipients, addressing the packages, but I don't have an accurate scale (I'm standing on the bathroom scale with the box and subtracting my weight, but the scale is only accurate to 0.5 lbs, assuming it's accurate in the first place), so I'll still need to stand in line and I'll probably need to make three trips. Happily, the UPS store also does USPS, and will compare prices so just in case I'm a little off I will have some choices.

Of course, all of this is for a good cause, and of course I'm happy to get the games out of the house, in addition to raising the money, but doing this many games at once is no fun and I will need to take a more proactive approach to purging in the future. This last purge was, by necessity, rather large in scale, and while I was able to get about a quarter of the games out the door without any shipping at all (and thanks to Roger M for being willing to pick them up from me directly), it's a lot of games. A *lot* of games.

So now I just stop buying them, I guess.

Har.

The Jack Vasel Memorial Fund Auction - How I Did

2011-11-16T21:11:00.001-08:00

While I was sadly unable to contribute to the JVMF by buying anything this year, I am happy to report that I was able, through the games I donated for auction, to have raised $1302 US. This does not count the $200 I raised selling games to people at BottosCon, or the money I donated earlier in the year from sales of games to friends (another $300). The total comes out to about $1800 for the year, an amount that I would almost certainly have never reached by dipping into my own pocket.

I'd like to be clear - I am not bragging about this amount. I am trying to set an example for others to follow - the games you don't play anymore can do some real good for those in the community who need help, and they go to people who are just as happy to get them as if you sold them for profit. I'm not saying you put a $300 Barbarossa game up for auction, but you can clear out the stuff you just don't feel like you need to keep in your collection anymore. You don't need to go anywhere near as big as I did this year, every bit helps.

Plus, the hobby has given a lot to me, so I'm happy to give back. That I was able to find such an effective and satisfying way to give back is frosting on the cake. I hope that every person who won a lot from me thinks of Jack and the good his memory is doing.

To everyone who bid or purchased games from me, thank you very much. You've done good things for our community, and gotten a game in the process. Nicely done! I thank you, and everyone at JVMF thanks you.

Also, a final thanks to those who ran the auction. Especially the one poor soul who provided a PBS fund drive-style "pimp my auction lot" commentary on every lot I submitted, all 24 of them. Trying to find something unique and interesting to say about yet another Panzer Grenadier lot went above and beyond!

Combat Commander: Resistance - Futile? I Think Not

2011-11-14T21:49:00.001-08:00

Cross posted from BGG, where I am stupid enough to set myself up for the crazy. That said, I like to think I do this sort of thing pretty well, and so I do it. What can I say, I loves me an audience.

---------------------------------------------

Just got the newest "chapter" in the Combat Commander series today, Resistance. The game, which requires both the Europe and Med boxes (and neither is optional, you'll need both to play every scenario unless you're prepared to roll your own Molotovs), covers resistance efforts across Europe during WW2. CC has covered this ground before, but using the units and decks of national armies and relying on scenario special rules. Interestingly, both of these scenarios (one in Eur, one in Med) are reprised in this set.

I'll cover the nuances in four sections: Units, Cards, Weapons, and Mechanisms. I will not make comparisons with the Pacific game, and really won't make a lot with the Eur/Med games either - this is mostly about what is new about the partisans and how it will affect play.

Units:

As you might imagine, partisans aren't nearly as tightly organized as military units are. As such, a squad of four men (in game terms) or a team of two men are the only multi-men counters there are. As such, there are counters that represent a number of men (and I use that term here to be consistent with the earlier games, even though there were clearly female partisans and they are represented on the counters) from leaders all the way up to six men "gangs". There is no differentiation in terms of quality or purpose, as with military nationalities.

As you move from the two man Crew up to the six man Gang, interesting things happen. With a Crew, firepower is fairly weak (although boxed - all unbroken partisans have boxed firepower), it's range is decent at 4, and it's movement better than most military units at 5. With all units except some leaders, unbroken partisans have a circled movement factor that allows them to move to any legal hex for one MP and ignore hexside terrain during movement as long as they don't possess a weapon that lowers their MP. This reflects familiarity with the local terrain.

As we move to Gangs, an interesting thing happens. Firepower, as you would expect, gets better, a boxed 6 (nearly the best in the game for a single unit). Range and movement, however, drop. For the six man gang, that means a range of 2 and movement of circled 1. Yeah, 1. I guess they argue a lot about where exactly they are going and how they are going to get there!

Morale, at least on the unbroken side, is a constant seven for all non-leader units. Apparently there is safety in numbers, as Crews are a 5 on their unbroken side and Gangs are a 7. I should also note that morale on these units is circled, meaning that you have to go through a process that I'll detail later that can result in elimination of the unit or perhaps instead a drop down to a smaller unit. In other words, a "kill" may actually end up resulting in losing just one man!

Leaders are, as usual, a mixed bag. Some start with really great morale, only to have it drop by 3 or more when the leader breaks, some work the opposite way. Leaders have fairly consistent firepower of boxed 1, range in the 2-4 area, and movement of circled 5 or boxed 6. That's right, some will operate quite a bit like military leaders, some will act like other partisans. Which ones you have will make a difference in how you use them.

Instead of a Command value on the unbroken side, leaders have a new value called Leadership. It works just like Command for most purposes, but instead of also defining a range of hexes in which the leader can activate units, instead there is an "eye" symbol that indicates that units within LOS can be activated. If that sounds awesome, remember that partisans typically operated in terrain such as woods, marsh or urban areas where LOS tends to be on the short side, and the circle movement factors lose their benefit compared with their enemy when in the open. Most Leadership values are 1 or 0, so not a lot of improvement to unit values stacked with the leader. The broken side is a regular Command value in a hex graphic.

So what does all of this mean? First of all, the movement benny means that difficult terrain is where the partisans want to be. At the same time, the Leadership LOS activation range means they also want to have some open space in which to communicate more efficiently. As you'll see, that will be important as partisans get smaller hands than the military groups. Difficult terrain also helps the mediocre morale factors on most units, so even more than usual, exploiting your terrain is critical.

The size of the units is also a big factor. Larger groups are going to be more likely to survive fire when broken and can lay down the smacky-smacky, but they can't move to save their lives, although a good leader will help a *lot*. Also, stacking suddenly becomes very interesting. Where military units will tend to organize into kill groups with a team, a squad, and a leader, partisans are much more amorphous. Gangs will be unable to stack with anyone else other than a leader, but when with a leader they are very powerful. There are also interesting ways to bump up the size of a unit, more on that later.

Given all of this, the types of missions you'll give to various units will depend as much on their size as anything else. Crews and Sections (three men) are very effective at moving, while Bands (five men) and Gangs are very effective at firing. Leaders are less valuable for improving kill stacks, but they do make larger groups better at moving. Because you can affect the size of a unit under certain circumstances, I could see one strategy being to use the smaller units to assault, then when in firing position getting Mustered (and no, not the type you put on your hot dog) into larger and more effective (if slower) groups.

Weapons

If CC is too chaotic for you, Mr. I Am Destroyer Of Worlds, you will hate the partisans. Why? Because when you get a weapon, it's whatever weapon happens to be at hand. They are all in a pool, and when you get a weapon, even at the start of a scenario, you never know what it will be. Might be a Molotov Cocktail, might be a French '75' gun. At least at scenario start you typically know what they'll be before they are placed on the map. And don't forget that the circled MPs aren't circled if you have a weapon that slows you down, so placement is critical.

A little editorializing, if you will permit me the luxury - There is plenty of space for eight Molotovs on the countersheet. Heck, there are seven unused counters and about sixty "extra" counters (vet/supped, wire, trenches, foxholes, etc). Four scenarios require maps from Med, two different scenarios require units from Med. That means six scenarios that require nothing from Med other than the damned Molotovs. Really?

Of course, savvy gamers will consider simply making their own Molotovs, but since you are drawing weapons blind it's what I would term a "suboptimal solution". I suspect that GMT will try to make good by adding these into a future C3i, although then you're requiring people to buy that C3i. I found this to be a surprising stumble in development, at least without having an explanation. Given that Europe is in it's third or fourth printing and Med just had the one, this strikes me as a shortsighted choice as you could have sold the game like Avalanche Press does with Panzer Grenadier - "Six of the scenarios require units or maps from CC:Med".

Otherwise, weapons aren't really any different other than their values, which may change from (say) LMG to LMG, and that includes repair/elim values. Hey, when you aren't picky about where your weapons come from, you can't complain when the quality control isn't there.

Cards

The cards are probably the area that most people won't think so much about, but I think they are by far the biggest change to the game for a variety of reasons. There are new Orders, new Actions, and new Events, but the biggest change is two-fold - smaller hands, and a smaller deck.

First off, Partisans get one less card based on posture than the military units. As a defender, that means three whopping cards. You will need that Leadership value in order to activate significant numbers of units in a Defensive posture! I've always thought of terrain in CC as being the most important piece of information driving your choices, certainly at setup and when you are planning your strategy, but now it's even more critical.

Now, Command Confusion cards are that much more problematic. But there's good news! If you want to discard, you can discard your entire hand no matter what your posture is!

Whoops, meant to say "you *must* discard your entire hand." Yep, the whole thing. Those of you who like holding on to those Ambush cards? That's gonna be a whole lot tougher. In a defensive posture, perhaps not quite as big of a deal, but when attacking? You simply can't tailor your hand over time as the military forces can do. This makes perfect sense, but it's a major game changer, and you'll be forced to be even more tactical than before.

It kind of sounds like generating those end-of-deck time triggers will be about the same, seeing as while you have one less card, you'll be discarding everything more often. Except for one little detail - the deck is half the size. And boy, does that throw a spanner into the works. For one thing, every possible die roll outcome is now represented *once*. That means it's a lot easier to track things like Time Triggers, which of the really useful actions are around, and a bunch of other things. Plus those end of deck time triggers are going to be coming out a lot faster, although this deck does *not* contain a "result" Time Trigger card! Smart Partisan players will want to learn to count certain cards in the deck now, even more so than military group players, although you could still do that with the 72 card deck (although I can't, and I grew up playing the granddaddy of all card counting games, Bridge).

The other big effect is that the Partisan player has a more consistent sense of clock management than other players. You get to a Time Trigger faster by discarding or playing lots of cards. Just shooting and hoping a Time Trigger comes up isn't gonna happen.

There are also a couple of new Order cards, Infiltration and Muster. Infiltrate is a lot like in the Pacific rules, but with some changes that I'll discuss later. The biggie is Muster, which allows you to bump the size of one unit (of the size dictated by the Order card) up by one. Having the right Muster card in hand, especially when you get a Troop or Band up to a firing position, can make a lot of difference. This may be the most important Order in the Partisan deck for that reason. There are four Muster cards and four Infiltrates, so these new cards make up nearly a quarter of the deck.

Otherwise, Orders stay pretty much the same except of course there are no Artillery Requests. There's only one Command Confusion Order, which is good (if you're the Partisans!)

New actions include Knife, which acts a lot like Bayonets in Pacific (improves firepower in Melee), and Trap lets you place Wire or Mines even if you aren't in a Defensive posture. Hee hee! I love doing that. New events let you shift units or Sighting markers (more on these later) one hex, which can act as virtual Advance, even if you have no control over when it shows up. There are four of these in the deck too. The truly wacky card, the one that the Partisan will curse or bless alternately, is the Inexperience Event, of which there are seven, basically giving you a 1-in-5 chance of drawing as an event, which forces the Partisan player to discard his entire hand. Yeah. Crazy talk. Control freaks should just walk on by and take the Germans now.

Mechanisms

Aside from what I've listed before, there is really only one thing that experienced CC players won't have seen before, and it's kind of a modification of an existing mechanism, but I'll let you hang a bit before talking about it. There are a few things that have been used in Stalingrad or in Pacific, though.

Partisans have no surrender level, just like the Japanese.

All partisans are worth 1VP when eliminated (even the hero!) OK, this is technically new.

Melee now works like it does in Stalingrad and Pacific, with the hex being activated at the start of the Axis turn (giving the advantage to the Partisans, as you would expect).

There is sewer movement, just like in Stalingrad.

There are Sighting markers, just like in Pacific, although these work differently, and are the biggest change in this section.

Sighting markers work like in Pacific, having to be moved when a random hex is determined. Stealth events allow you to move them as well. When Partisans are place, they are removed, just like in Pacific. You can also place them via Infiltrate orders, although there is no A/B/C box system as in Pacific.

The differences will make Sighting markers much more interesting to play. First of all, all Partisan reinforcements come in via sighting markers. That means having a unit show up on a Sighting marker just got a lot more likely, at least assuming there are reinforcement units. You can even spread out a group of reinforcements amongst the Sighting markers. But you better have the markers out, because if you don't have them you lose the reinforcements. Remember that stacking is enforced, so no overstacking. Also, you remove the Sighting marker once you place units on it, so it will go away. Managing this mechanism is going to be an important part of the Partisan playbook.

And, fortunately, manage it you can - at a cost. Those Infiltrate cards I mentioned before? That's how you do it. However, you will probably have to pay a VP price (between 0 and 3, one value per Infiltrate card), but you'll get your choice of two different actions. You can, if you wish, place a new Sighting marker on the board, which the rules strongly suggest is dependent on the counter mix rather than how many sighting markers you get at the start of the scenario. Really good choice if you have a lot of reinforcements coming in and few Sighting markers in play.

Let's say you have a ton of sighting markers already. In this case, you can get more units by playing an Infiltrate card. Yeah, now you can generate your own extra reinforcements without having to hope for an event. It will just cost you some VP (maybe). So if you have sighting markers and no reinforcements, this is an obvious play. If you can afford the VP!

Finally, there is one more wrinkle to this last mechanism of getting extra reinforcements, and it uses a mechanism that I mentioned a long time ago when we were discussing circled Morale values. And it involves an extra deck the Partisan player has, the Force deck.

Cards in the Force deck have two sections. The top section is used to tell you what reinforcements you get when using an Infiltration card for that purpose. If there's a weapon involved, you draw it randomly, then place the unit (and weapon, if one is called for) on a Sighting marker. Kind of like the Support Table but less flexible.

The bottom section is used when a unit with circled Morale (which means it's broken) is killed in combat. Instead of just removing the unit, you draw the top Force card and look at the bottom section. If the unit pictured is smaller than the unit that just got killed, you replace the killed unit in the counter mix and replace it with the unit pictured. If the pictured unit is the same size or larger, the killed unit stays killed and goes on the casualty track. Not that there's a Surrender level, but I'm sure there are events that will bring them back on occasion.

The implications are interesting indeed. This means that now you can burn VP to bring in more units, although you have no say on who happens to be coming back from the latrine area and with what reading material. They might show up anywhere on the map. Units that die may, you know, get better. Right away. In fact, it's very possible that you will gain leaders, much like having Private Ryan or whoever get a battlefield promotion, just in a very random way. There are more ways to move those Sighting markers around now, not just random hex generation.

Summary

Consider this. There are exactly five pages of new rules in this expansion. Five. In those five pages, containing fonts of a generous size and white space in such abundance that you normally only see it's like in middle school term papers, is laid out the basis for a "nationality" that plays like no other. And, to be honest, at least one of those pages repeats rules that a lot of you are probably already playing with (melee and sewers)!

Partisans have some interesting challenges. You have a smaller hand and the very real chance that at any time you will lose the whole thing (although there is only a 1-in-12 chance you'll get an event trigger), and certainly you aren't going to ditch that Command Confusion card quite so easily. There is no way to fiddle with your deck to get the right cards to do what you want to do, you're going to have to make due. On the bright side, if you ever wanted to learn to count cards this might be the time to take it up.

And speaking of working with what you have, that will apply to your weapons as well. This makes every scenario more replayable, incidentally, as getting that French '75' will make that major fire lane a whole lot more interesting.

Your leadership is also a very mixed bag, and while you start with one set, opportunity is knocking every time you stand to see a unit eliminated. Suddenly, those lines of sight that aren't pointing at enemies can be critical, and in open maps you can activate a whole lot of units if you've placed them correctly.

However, getting them placed correctly, especially the big boys, is going to be a challenge. Fortunately, the little groups can move *fast* and you have some chance of upgrading them once they get into position. And even then, you may be able to get them into position without your opponent knowing it. Not to mention having Gregor come back from town with a medium machine gun and a pirated copy of the latest Cagney flick on, uhm, Betamax? Not sure that was around then...

In a nutshell, you have some limitations, and you have some freedoms. And you can wear your own clothes and wear your hair any damned way you want. And you can be a woman and *fire automatic weapons*. There's an entire *genre* of movies dedicated to that very idea, although usually the clothes those women "choose" to wear are bikinis. And I don't think breast implants were all that common in the '40s.

I have yet to try this game out, it having come to my door this very day. Actually, on Saturday but I didn't check the mail (won't make that mistake again). Chad just keeps putting these things out and I keep buying them, and I think that's a good thing, but Resistance definitely mixes things up. Not as much as Pacific did, but a goodly amount and a lot of what gets mixed up is under the hood. The point of this essay was to give you some sense of what those things are, and I hope it helps you crush your Facist opponent right out of the box.

Just don't smoke too many of those occupied French cigarettes. Those things'll kill ya.

Wargames Up For Grabs In BGG Benefit Auction

2011-11-12T10:22:00.001-08:00

I've put about 100 wargames and expansions up as part of the auction to benefit the Jack Vasel Memorial Fund. They're on pages 12 and 13 of the Geeklist, if you are interested. Most of the games are from The Great War At Sea, Great Battles of History, and the Panzer Grenadier series, but there are quite a few others.

Apparently there was a thread on the 'Geek announcing that I'd done this that almost immediately turned into a discussion of altruism. And bitching that I'd put the games into bundles. If you are wishing I hadn't put the games into bundles, then you should consider being the guy who ships every one of these games. Do you want to spend a week addressing 100 packages? I thought not. Bundles (or "lots") of games sold at auction is a time-tested method, and I make no apologies for my choice. Don't want them all? Gift them, donate them, sell them, whatever.

I'd also like to address the idea of this being an altruistic act. It's not, not entirely - most actions we take on this scale, bar the occasional impulsive act, contain many reasons. In my case, here is why I've put so many games up for auction:

I own too many games. It's a problem. I've filled my entire game room, and while it's not a bonus room over a garage, it's a good sized room. It's also finite. I needed to purge some of my collection, this seemed like a good way to do it. I've already sold off most of the Euros to friends and donated the money, and sold a few more to people who wanted to buy at BottosCon last weekend, which I'll donate before the end of the year.
I am a fortunate man. I retired before I was 40, I live on a golf course, I'm in relatively good health, I have a delightful granddaughter, and I was born with more than a modicum of intelligence. Not necessarily good sense, but intelligence. I really don't need the money from these sales, the games will (hopefully) find a good home, and some people will be helped as a result. Maybe it's just me, but I see this as an obvious choice.
I like the JVMF for a couple of reasons, but primarily because I believe Tom Vasel is a Good Man who does Good Works. He has turned his personal misfortune, the loss of a child (no one should have to suffer this, ever), into a force for good in the boardgaming community. The Fund is still relatively small as these things go, so not so much goes to overhead but to the people who need help. I've also worked with Tom briefly on The Dice Tower as Mr. Whiney some years ago, so there's a connection already in place.
I'm not getting rid of games I like. This is not some great sacrifice on my part - most of the games are either games that I just don't get to play or have played and found I was not that fond of (sorry, Avalanche Press, I'm talking to you), or from periods I'm not as interested in, or frankly because some of the games aren't that good. While I admit to being the kind of guy who doesn't like parting with portions of my collection, at the same time I will not shed a tear to see any of them go. I have lots of other games to play.

I'm no saint, any more than anyone reading this. I'm just a guy trying to solve problems who found a way to solve at least two of them (one of them mine, the rest waiting to happen). To my mind, this is the sort of thing we should *all* be doing - reaching out and supporting our community, whether it's where you live, where you worship, who you work and play with. I hope that everyone reading this will check out the auction, check out the Fund, and help out someone else who is having a Really Bad Day (or, more likely, Days/Weeks/Months) who enjoys games just like you do. Thanks.

Veteran's Day

2011-11-11T22:21:00.001-08:00

I am fortunate to have never fired a weapon in anger, or to have had someone fire one at me. Long time followers of this blog know that I have no fondness for either the war we foisted on the Iraqi people, nor on the men who worked so hard to start it.

That said, I do recognize that part of the reason that I can complain about the leadership of my country is because of the sacrifice in time, mental health, and lives of those who serve in our military. Sometimes those lives are wasted, sometimes they make an enormous difference. To everyone who has served, to everyone who has family who has served, and especially to all of those in the Service who have given their lives or lost people dear to them, I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Dona Nobis Pacem

Urban Sprawl - Threat or Menace?

2011-11-08T11:25:00.000-08:00

Perhaps no game released this year has been as hotly anticipated yet so berated by the general boardgaming community as Urban Sprawl. Quarriors had it's detractors, but it wasn't seen as the "sequel" to Dominant Species, arguably the best game released in 2010. Merchant of Venus has seen a lot of activity, but there's no game on the shelves at this point. As my friend Chris "The Cat" said in the comment of his rating of the game on BoardGameGeek, "What a disappointment."

I have to admit that, after setting the game up and running through a couple of turns in preparation for my game at BottosCon, I had my concerns. The game did seem to be very chaotic, with about half of each contract deck never seeing play and an overtly tactical feel to the game with little or no chance for long-term planning apparent. What I failed to remember was that Dominant Species' rules and components concerned me as well - most of the "game" was placing action pawns, or so it seemed.

However, if I've learned one thing in boardgaming it is that you can't judge a game by it's rules, or even a few rounds of play. There are a few exceptions here and there, but the basic idea is that looking at part of a system does not show you the entire system at work. Given that, I went into my game this past Saturday with some trepidation but trying to keep an open mind.

First, a quick overview of the core mechanism of the game which should demonstrate why this game has people unhappy with the design. You have two types of cards in the game, permits and contracts. Both cost action points (of which each player has six to spend in their turn) and that cost is dependent on how long the card has been face up on the table (more or less). Permits can be held indefinitely, and have the side effect of providing wealth (money) if discarded at the start of your turn. Contracts, on the other hand, can only be held by a player as a "favor," must be paid for in advance, and only one favor can be held by a player at any given time.

Aside from refreshing the displays, it is the application of permits to contracts that create an on-board property that is the main way of generating both wealth and prestige (VP) in this game, and so much of one's turn is spent scanning the available permits, including those in the player's possession, comparing them with the available contracts, and possibly the player's "favor," and coming up with the best combination for the player, based on the permit's zoning restrictions (suit) and number of permit icons (rank) matching the contract.

That calculus is not limited to the actual property that is placed on the board, however. Some contracts also grant "vocations" which pay out wealth or prestige to those who have gained them with this contract or in the past, and there is often some other card event that will affect wealth and prestige of one or more players based on some criteria, such as owning the most red "Civics" properties on the board or the most valuable property of a type.

In a four player game, as I played, it is entirely possible for players to build two contracts in a turn, perhaps three if they've been planning ahead for their "favor" contract. As such, there is a good chance that by the time their turn comes around again that most of the available cards, both permit and contract, have changed from what was available in their last turn. There are also numerous events that take place, driven by both buying contract cards as well as through the event cards, and one's position is constantly changing as a result. To say this game is "tactical" is an understatement, at least from the perspective of the permit/contract mechanism.

At least, that's how the game appears on it's face.

There are two elements that give you much more control over your fate, however. Note that I'm using relative terminology here, no one is saying that this is an 18xx game where there is no luck other than who goes first, but compared with the core mechanism there is definitely some control to be found. The two elements are vocations and political offices, and it is these elements that should drive your overall strategy.

I've mentioned vocations, which you get when you purchase some contracts, and which pay wealth or prestige to those who already possess them. What isn't apparent is that there are several events that reward the person with the most vocations, or that one of the political offices, the Mayor, is based on who has the most vocations. One in particular, Media, is particularly important in breaking ties for the Mayor as well as involved in several events, although there are very few contracts that I saw that have this particular vocation. As such, initial placement of ownership on the board is important because whoever has the most money in hand (meaning the least value of properties on the board) gets the Media vocation and will likely hold onto it for at least a while. This is an excellent example of how the rules don't begin to show the interrelationships of the various game elements.

The other strategic element is the political offices. There are six of these, of which only the Mayor is used during the "Town" portion of the game, basically the first third of the game. As mentioned above, vocations get you the Mayor office. Each office has a Special Mutant Power that they grant the owning player, in the Mayor's case that means they get to place a one-lot park anywhere on the board, which act as buildings but separate from the other zoning aspects of Civics, Commercial, Residential, and Industrial. Each office also has a special end-game scoring, which in the Mayor's case means you get a prestige point for each building adjacent to a park at the end of the game.

The next four political offices are all related to the four different zoning types, and all have a special power and an end game scoring. All are elected based on having the most valuable property of the given zone, and end game points based on the number of those buildings on the map. The special powers grant extra action points during your turn, or allow you point bonuses, etc.

Offices are passed from player to player based on having the most valuable building of a given type, calculated by the sum of any prestige or wealth marker in that building's rows (all directions are called rows, not columns, in the game). As such, there is some desire to go after those blocks that generate the most value if you want to keep an office. However, there is the opportunity, usually due to events, to manipulate property values on the map.

The last "office" is really not that at all, but an appointment, and it's the Contractor which is given to the player with the least prestige. This office allows the player to build over other people's properties and prevents others from building over the Contractor's properties if they have an Urban Renewal card (which is a special type of permit in the Planning deck). In a close game, this role can be pivotal, and I have to admit that I love games that reward running just behind the pack. In a blowout, it won't matter so much.

If it isn't apparent, the way to win this game is to control as many vocations as possible and as many offices as possible. The guy who had played before, Art, achieved this in the midgame, and rode it to victory in the end. Once we'd figured out to go after vocations and offices, the game tightened up considerably but the damage was done.

In other words, this isn't just a game about matching permits to contracts and withstanding events. You need to also go for vocations and offices as well through selection of contracts but also building in the right spots.

I freely admit that this assessment is based off of a single play, but I have seen others online who have said the same thing after repeated plays - if you think this game is solely tactical, you are mistaken. It is *heavily* tactical, but that is different. Knowing full well that this will convince my good friend Eric that he should never play this game, I would compare it to the excellent Warriors of God, which is very chaotic but still gives you enough information to make long-term decisions.

This is not to say that the game is for everyone, far from it. In many respects, where Dominant Species is a social game, Urban Sprawl is more of a puzzle game where you have to balance short term abilities with long term goals. There are cards that are very powerful that will give you an advantage if they come up right before your turn, and the semi-random end-game trigger (a card in the Metropolitan deck) will often screw you for points if it takes just a little too long to show up, as it did in our game for me.

I would not play this game with four unless it was in a difficult situation (at a con, for example, or if I was teaching the game) as there is simply too much downtime between turns, especially early in the game when there isn't as much interaction (not that there's much in the late game either). It's a little like the Knizia classic Samurai but about three times as long and with a more complex set of choices to make. For example, there's a great property that you really want to control (and get a vocation from) but it will take all of your action points for the turn and you won't have any permits to build with, but you can buy it as a favor for later and prevent others from taking it. However, you may have to choose between it and another property that will give you a short term but large wealth benefit that will almost certainly go to someone else. Making these assessments is what makes this game interesting, but it also makes it long and less interactive.

I'm not saying this is a great game that everyone should love. I liked it quite a bit more than I expected, but it's not Dominant Species. I think of it more as a double bordering on a triple rather than a home run, as the designer has tended to do in the past.

If you are on the fence about this game, or got it in preorder and were disappointed enough by the negative buzz online or the ruleset, I would strongly consider you give it a couple of games to sink in (as is necessary for good play with, say, Dominant Species) if you meet some of the following criteria:

Like puzzles
Like three-player games
Can tolerate short-term chaos but still recognize long-term strategy
Can tolerate a three-hour play time for the above
Understand that "tolerate" isn't a four-letter word, nor is "chaos"

The fourth item is probably the most critical, as a game like Ascension, especially when played on an iPad, is very similar. However, it's played in around 10 minutes, and many gamers recognize that the more chaos in a game, especially in the absence of an interesting narrative (like, say, Arkham Horror or Fortune and Glory) means it needs to be shorter rather than longer. While I disliked the downtime in our game, I was engaged the entire time and found the last few turns to be very exciting, especially whether or not I would be able to keep the Police Chief office or whether Art would steal it back were an election to be held due to the right (or wrong) planning card to be revealed.

I should also note that the final phase of each player turn can be extremely involved. As such, it's important to make sure that the Active Player marker is passed religiously or else you may well find yourselves without the vaguest idea of who goes next. We had a couple of cleanup phases that lasted for a good five minutes, with up to ten or twelve cards turned face up due to multiple events, and up to seven or eight specific board situations evaluated. With a little repetition, these become pretty fast, as you can get a good sense of what blocks on the board are the most valuable (a common computation) by identifying the intersection of the most valuable rows. We found counting the number of buildings owned for payouts to be pretty quick with everyone helping out. I would suggest that the person next taking their turn not be involved in the computations but rather in deciding what they would be doing as their selection of cards is revealed to help speed things up, so in a three-player game that means the active player and the person just before them doing the calculations. It sounds onerous, but I think of it as being a lot like the domination calculations in Dominant Species, which didn't prevent that game from being a huge hit and critical success.

If you are a fence-sitter, and unsure as to whether this game is really for you or not, I hope this analysis gives you a better sense of the game and counters some of what I consider to be knee-jerk negative buzz about the game. Note that while I did quote my friend Chris at the top of this post, I haven't spoken to him about how he reached his conclusion about the game and so I make no judgement, although I thought it was a pretty succinct summary of the general reception of the game. I'm more referring to the many who played one game with two or four players and pronounced their own judgement.

And yeah, I'm kinda doing that too, but I like to think I'm doing it with an open mind and an engineer's eye for systems and design. I don't think that this is anywhere near the best game of the year, but I do think it most definitely has a place on my shelf. I also think that it would make a *killer* iPad app as the social interaction isn't as important (you can do some kibitzing, but nothing like in many other games of this length).

As I finish up this entry, it also occurs to me that there is another game that is similar in a lot of ways, although with a lot more apparent choices in how action points are spent, and that's Through The Ages. If you like TtA, you should definitely give US a much closer look, as the decision making is very similar and also similarly tactical although action points are used in much different ways.

BottosCon 2011, Day 3

2011-11-07T17:02:00.000-08:00

How quickly the weekend goes when you're having fun! Seems like I just got here, but already it's time to go.

Due to a mixup on my part as to when I was going to start the PQ-17 demo, not to mention trying to figure out what I was going to have for breakfast (ended up with chipboard-based granola bars from the quikiemart across the street from the hotel), and by the time I got downstairs my two victims had already found other games to play. Not a problem for me, I was feeling like I was a bit overwhelmed anyway.

As it turned out, one of my players was going to play Fortress America, and they needed a fourth. FA is an old GameMasters game from Milton Bradley back in the day, along with Axis and Allies as well as Shogun (later Samurai Swords, later Ikusa). Hilariously, they were playing Shogun at another table. I'd played the other two games, but never FA, and was looking forward to it despite having heard it was the weakest of the three. Weakest perhaps, but I had a blast.

The game came out in the 80's, when Reagan was president and it looked like a nuclear war was an actual possibility. The Nicaraguans were Socialist, we were just 10 years out of Vietnam, and the Chinese were starting their "long march" to become the world's next dominant power. Watching children's television where the main character speaks half in Mandarin, and I can tell you that we are seeing the voices of our new overlords. That's history, no one stays on top forever no matter how much they want to.

In FA, America is fighting off invasions on three fronts: the Asian People's Front (or the People's Front of Asia, can't remember which) who are invading the Left Coast from LA north; the Central American Fruit Picker's Union from the south (San Diego to New Orleans), and the Slavic Hordes from Miami to Maine. Hilariously, the Asian side is yellow and the Slavic Hordes are Red. I was the Yellow Peril, Rob was the CAFPU, and Michel was the Reds, while Clayton was the Yanks. Hilariously (my word of the day) he wore a CCCP hockey jersey.

Sounds kind of difficult for the US, but of course this is a game sold in the US so that means they need to have more than a fighting chance. And, of course, they should... Wolverines! Sadly, no Cubans airdropping into Denver in this game, although they tried.

Because there's really no reason to pay the slightest attention to what's happening on the other side of the continent, at least as the Yellow Peril (or the Reds, for that matter), I don't know much about what happened over there other than initially it seemed that things went well in the mid-Atlantic states south, not so well in the north. There are a *lot* of cities in the rust belt, so a lot of reason for the US to make more of an effort guarding it. I do know that Michel had to leave to catch a train and his role was taken over by someone that I'm ashamed to say I didn't really get to meet. However, Rob was able to stick around for the entire game this time!

Maybe it's my deodorant.

I was very successful in my initial foray on the coast, taking the entire thing as well as making good use of my helicopters to strike inland. There are not a lot of forces on the coast, so not a difficult stretch. I took Portland, San Francisco, and LA with very few casualties. Rob had a little more trouble, as did Michel.

As I moved inland, Seattle went back and forth a couple of times, but eventually I took enough ground to have it safe in my backfield, and I was moving on to Salt Lake City. By now Rob was knocking on Denver's door, but was having trouble maintaining control of those pesky Texan cities, and Michel had control of the entire SE, although there had been no link up with Rob. In contrast, Rob and I were guarding each other's flanks, although Rob was leaving a lot of territory ungarrisoned, something I used the slow nature of my infantry to avoid.

FA is an interesting game because the invaders have a set amount of new units to bring in every turn, and eventually they run out. Kind of silly for the Chinese, who have more people than they know what to do with, but hey, it was an alt-history game. The US, on the other hand, draws cards to place units on the map, which can happen in your backfield if you aren't careful. By the time we were approaching the endgame, I had taken everything west of the Rockies and was pressing toward either Denver or Kansas City (maybe St Louis, not really sure), but the real prize was the edge of the Rust Belt in the Upper Midwest, as we Yanks say, and all of those SDI emplacements that Clayton kept using to zap our units. I was trying to outflank him to the north and as such had had to leave a few open areas when Clayton dropped some partisans into the Pacific Northwest and threatened both Seattle and Portland.

Couldn't have that...

Amazingly, both cities held, but it took a lot of extra work on my part and burned a few units to root them all out. The diversion worked and by now I was getting a little thin on the ground. Clayton, however, was out of cards to draw for reinforcements as well, so if I could get my spread out infantry going I had a shot at knocking him out. However, Rob's campaign had been constantly plagued by having his cities retaken regularly, and while we did hit the magic number of 18, we had not been at all able to keep it and never got close again. We finally called it with the CAFPU down to something like six units on the map, and actually being threatened by a lone US mobile unit in Phoenix. I was ready to pick up the pieces, but it was clear that if we continued the game could go for a while and it was getting to be time to go, so we called it for Clayton at that point.

This game was, by far, the surprise of the con for me. I'd never played, and I have to say that I thought I never would. A&A, by far the successful franchise out of the three GameMaster games, has never really captured my fancy, even with all of the various spinoffs (although I think that the D-Day and Bulge games are excellent introductory games for new wargamers). While I knew that FA would be a different game, I was astonished to find a game that I was having a lot of fun playing with almost no formal rules explanation at all. I was even looking forward to the ultimate turn where the various armies all turn on each other to try to see who gets the prize, a la Monsters Ravage Your Local Hooters. Were I to find a copy in decent shape for a reasonable price, I might just buy this thing, it was that entertaining and did reward good play (which Clayton told me I had accomplished).

And that was that. I'd already packed the car and checked out, so all I had to do was remember the six or seven things I had laying around the con area, get in the car, and drive.

And drive. And drive. I arrived home around 8pm, very tired and ready for bed. And it was evening and morning the third day.

I will post my overall impressions of the con very soon, but you can be sure that I had a great time and will almost certainly be back next year.

BottosCon 2011, Day 2

2011-11-07T13:19:00.000-08:00

Saturday was to see me playing three games, two of which were new (or nearly so) to me, the third being a relatively new favorite that I have struggled to some degree to understand how to play well.

First up was the very recently released Urban Sprawl, which I played with Art, Rob, and Les. I felt, as the guy with the most letters in his first name, that I had a lock on winning this one, even with someone else explaining the rules. It's very hard for me not to be "helpful" when others are explaining rules, so I hope that Art didn't feel I was being pushy. He did a great job, and we got into the game.

Since US is a game that I would normally do a little bit of "analysis" on in a full blog post, I will refrain from too much description until a later post. However, I will say that I think that there's been a certain expectation associated with this game given Chad's enormous success and the overall critical acclaim of his last multiplayer design, Dominant Species, and that said expectation was almost certainly never going to be met as US is a much different game. In short, it scratches a different itch, which is a good thing, but many people wanted it to scratch the same itch, only better. In our play, I was better able to see the long game thanks to the ongoing discussions in the forums on the 'Geek and my experience was considerably more satisfying than it has been for many. Again, I'll go into more depth in a later post once I've finished my report on the con.

Art, having played the day before on the trip up from Seattle on the train, understood the value of both vocations and political offices, both of which are a little longer term. I focused on civics and residences, and while that put me solidly in second with Art having about a 40 point margin, it also gave me a lot of downside when it came to some of the events. Rob started the game with us, but eventually had to bow out at noon and we ended up finishing about 1:30pm with Charlie subbing (what a good sport he was...)

Again, I will post my thoughts on the game in a future posting.

Once I had lunch, I was starting to flag but that didn't stop Duncan and I from playing the Fall Blau scenario of No Retreat! We'd considered playing through the Saturn scenario as well, but the late start because of my earlier game running over combined with my fatigue had us wrapping up at the end of the specific scenario. Note that the game itself doesn't allow you to start and stop at different times, as the victory conditions will be a bit spotty given a somewhat different "starting" position for follow-on scenarios, but it seemed doable and it's all in fun anyway.

I played as the Germans, who are poised to make a major breakout in the south, where only five Russian units, including the ones in the Crimea, are placed. The German gets seven cards to start with, and they have a huge advantage should the Russians fall quickly. Which they did not.

I didn't get a single useful card in the entire hand that was playable during my turn, nor did the dice cooperate (apparently the Deansian Statistical Distortion Field is not effected by international borders), with me seeing something like six ones out of my first ten rolls. As such, none of the Russians were eliminated, nor really even budged much. Sevastopol held out until the next turn, and Rostov fell the following turn, but really the Germans need a big breakout to have even a faint chance of winning this one. Add in Mud weather for the last two turns and this one was never going to go my way. That said, Duncan played well (although I felt he was not paying nearly enough attention to keeping his oil fields protected) and this game just keeps growing on me. If it has an Achilles heel, it is that there are relatively few rolls and the cards you draw can have a large effect on your abilities, especially if clear weather is changed to mud.

I may try the solitaire rules again just to see how they work, but really this is a game for two players and one not terribly well suited to pbem (although real time on VASSAL would work very well).

After a fairly good dinner at the hotel's premium restaurant with several of the guys from the con (I had the baby back ribs, which were pretty good), it was time for my game of Dominant Species. Reaction to this game in my group has been decidedly mixed, with several people finding it to be better than Die Macher and the rest thinking it's a luckfest. I'm in the latter category, although I admit to being somewhat concerned that a five-player game was going to be far too chaotic. I don't know that I'd do this game with six, but five was fine.

Playing with me were Dave, Jay, Art, and (IIRC) Gavin. Maybe Devon. Hard to tell, because there was a wedding going on in the adjacent conference room and the music was incredibly loud. If I weren't already sterile I would have been after that evening. It was so loud that people were picking their tables and games up and moving them to the opposite end of the room. Not that this helped, the bass frequencies were so boomy that I actually started to get a little nauseous. Of course, it got worse as the night went on, but we slogged through the game anyway. Dave was the lone noob, but he did very well and was very patient with us as we gave him well-intentioned advice.

I had the Birds, which seems to be the animal I end up with regularly. The birds are very strong as they can get out of tough situations if you use the Migrate action. As usual, I struggled to build up the elements on my player sheet, getting Meat in the second turn, and not getting another element until much later in the game and then losing it almost immediately, and finally losing the Meat elements shortly thereafter. I ended up with three Seeds at the end, which fortunately there were a lot of on the board by game end.

Instead, I focused early on placing Tundra and improving my initiative position, and ended up being first or second right up to the end, especially useful as Seeds were in the Wasteland box on the final turn and I was able to preserve my position by placing my first AP there to negate it. Good thing, as about half of the seeds on the board were adjacent to Tundra tiles and I would have crashed and burned rather badly. Interestingly, I was not nearly as aggressive at taking Domination actions, and I think I ended up with that action about half of the time.

I made a good run on the Insects in the midgame, only to see them jump forward thanks to a couple of good scoring cards, while the Mammals and the Amphibians were making a strong run up to my position. I knew from previous experience, however, that you need to play the long game, and so it was that the focus was on the Insects as the end of the game approached, and it was them who took the most abuse. Meanwhile, the Arachnids had missed the rule that says you can't dominate an area if you can't eat there, and dropped down to four species on the board and completely stalled out. Very unfortunate for Art, but that's evolution for you.

On the final turn, that extra Seed allowed me to dominate in six areas, while the Insects had completely stalled out. I had species all over the map and ended up winning by a fairly good margin. The Insects did well too, but only enough for second, while the Amphibians made an excellent run for the Survival card on the last turn and scooped the Mammals for third.

About halfway into the game, I started feeling really good about both my position as well as my grasp of the game, and It was very satisfying to see that my strategy paid off in the end. While I will say that I liked Urban Sprawl much more than I expected to, I will also say that Dominant Species is, at least for me, a more satisfying game in many ways and deserves it's place in the pantheon of future classics. Thanks to Jay for GMing this one.

And it was evening and morning the second day.

BottosCon 2011, Day 1

2011-11-07T11:44:00.000-08:00

Back from BC, and ready to blog. My apologies if I'm misremembering any events, the ride home was long and very tiring and I'm just starting to catch up.

I drove up to BC on Thursday, leaving an hour or so before lunchtime. I was anticipating about a 7 hour trip, including getting across the border into Canada, but actual travel time was less (more like about 5.5 hours) even with some congestion just north of Everett, WA (the northern end of the Seattle metro area, at least in my mind). I went up I-5 the entire way, and in general the drive was pleasant. The speed limit in Washington outside of urban areas is 70mph (although near Bellingham many of the seemingly rural areas areas have a lower speed limit, also more police) and I made it a point to stick to the speed limit rather than fund further municipal operations in that fine state.

The border took only a minute to get through, but I have to admit it's a little jarring to be driving at 70mph one minute and 20 the next going over speed bumps and negotiating intentional chicanes intended to make sure you go 20. The border official asked if I was selling or donating anything (the answer, I hear, is always "no") and what my profession is (always a little dicey to say "retired" and while I've learned to say "I'm an investor in income-producing property" I was tired enough to have forgotten and go through the drill). That said, it was painless and fast. The drive up the King George Highway less so, especially as I'd forgotten to check the actual address of the hotel, but I found it without incident and got my gear into the room easily, where I took a nap, grabbed some room service, and watched some movies I'd ripped onto the iPad.

Some tips if you are staying at the Compass Point Inn in Surrey, BC - Ask for a room facing away from the road. Somehow, the builder didn't get the message that single pane windows are neither energy efficient nor are they the least bit effective at masking road noise, a fact I didn't really appreciate until I was awakened at about 4am as traffic picked up on the highway outside. Thank goodness I had brought the Monster Jamz earbuds I'd picked up the month before, which create a seal in the ear canal and function equally well as earplugs. The hotel did provide complimentary bottled water and a refrigerator that did not have a lock on it (nor anything inside). The restaurants were also very acceptable.

I woke up Friday very excited about the con, but in asking the desk which ballroom we were in they pointed me in exactly the wrong direction, probably because the venue was changed twice in the days right before the con. I admire Rob for working *so* hard to give everyone a good experience - he was tireless, but also honest in his dealings, and I suspect that while most people would agree with that comment, few truly understand even in a passing sense what is involved in mounting a gathering like this. As such, I went down to the meeting rooms trying to figure out when the con was starting, and never actually saw the space until nearly noon. At that point, things started to pick up considerably. For one thing, I got to meet Rob Bottos at last, and am very glad I did. In the middle of getting things set up, he helped me get my games from the car and took time to make sure I had what I needed.

Once lunch was over, I got started with my Up Front games, first against Duncan, then against Michel, both of whom I would be gaming with later on. Fortunately, both were at about the same familiarity level as I was with the rules, and we simply played the City Fight scenario in both cases. I had prepared, at least in terms of rules, to play up to the fifth scenario, the one before vehicles, but had not actually played a game with those rules, but a few things did pop up (Entrenchments, mostly, but also wounds and a few other things I learned as we went).

It's taken me a while to really warm up to Up Front. When I first tried learning the game in the late 90's, it was because I'd picked up the game (and the expansions) not long after AH was bought by Hasborg and I was picking up a lot of AH games while I could. Turns out this was a very fortunate purchase, along with Hannibal, Successors, Breakout: Normandy, and several other games that have proved to be true wargaming classics. I took the game with me on business trips before I had a laptop to play in the hotel room in the evenings, but I struggled with the conceptual nature of the game and the flanking/encircling/infiltration rules confused me to no end. When I starting the relearning process a few weeks ago in preparation for BottosCon, things clicked into place much more quickly, in no small part because I'm older and wiser, but also because I've played more at the tactical level with so many "lighter" games published in the intervening years and the concepts are clearer to me. Regardless, even with the fussiness present (although the integrated ruleset available on the 'Geek helped a lot, as there is considerably errata and clarifications for the game), this is a great little game that plays fast (usually) and has a lot of variation. Used copies, especially with the expansions, go for very high prices (I think my copy was $50 for the whole thing, although I got a copy with a blank box bottom), but if you have one sitting on your shelf that you've never pulled out it's worth exploring.

My first game was against Duncan, who took the Germans against my Soviets. While the Sovs only get four cards at a time, they can also get rid of the entire hand if they don't activate any groups. Since a lot of good things can be done when discarding (laying wire, playing Snipers), it's actually a very strong position to be in if you don't try to plan too far ahead. Which works perfectly for me.

That said, Duncan's Germans chewed me up and spit me out real good, and I lost more than half of my men before we got through the first deck, in particular my assault squad, which had the benefit of being hit by a Demo charge after a few tries at infiltration. I had never actually seen infiltration happen, much less flanking, so it was a very good experience from the point of seeing these mechanisms in action.

With Up Front, you divide your men into groups, and those groups function together. With more groups, you get several benefits - only one group is targeted at a time, so a very strong attack affects fewer men; Rally cards typically only rally three or four men at a time, so easier to get your full group going again, and more groups makes it harder to have your opponent flank you. The downside is that your firepower is lower and so it's harder to get to use those bigger Fire cards, although it's easier to flank and thus double your firepower. In my game with Duncan, he had two groups to my three, but it didn't help as much as I'd hoped.

My second game was against Michel, who I would play Hearts and Minds with later in the evening. This was, without question, a great game. We went the full three decks, and when I managed to get a decent position in the third deck, I started getting rid of cards like there was no tomorrow. Unlike Duncan's smashing demo charge attack, Michel's was only able to wipe out the lone remaining pinned man in my assault squad, but since he'd already wiped out the rest the result was effectively the same. However, my other groups were far enough forward and unpinned enough (other than my central LMG group, which had a few men pinned briefly near the end of the game) that I took the win. This was a classic back and forth effort on both sides and has only whet my appetite for more.

After dinner at the pub attached to the hotel (which you had to leave the building to get to, same with the liquor store), a dinner which featured a distinct shortage of several types of beer, strange to see on a Friday early in the evening, Michel and I set up Hearts and Minds. Michel had been looking for an opponent, and this was a game I had but hadn't explored in any depth at all, not even reading the rules. Chuck and I got in a game before I left that saw the North wipe the table with the South in terms of Political Will, and I had heard this was a tough game for the South. Still, losing in 1966 seemed a little odd, so I was looking forward to playing someone with experience in the game. We used the v2 rules, which are apparently considerably better, and make some significant rules changes. I was very happy I hadn't tried to learn from the rules in the box!

And exactly the same thing happened, or nearly so. I went for control early and hard, as well as pressing for combat in the south. I managed to take the Saigon area through a card play, and had a massively successful attack in the upper reaches of Zone IV against an ARVN stack, and also forced a coup, all in the first turn. I had planned to focus on a Zone IV campaign in 1966, as in my game with Chuck, and I'd already taken enough areas and wiped out enough SVA forces to more or less ensure this in the first turn. Michel, on the other hand, campaigned in Zone I at the North Vietnam border. While he was very effective this turn, losing very few units while mine were melting away, at the same time I was able to generate political will in the south while he was never able to counter in the north and I won on Political Will in 1966. Again.

As you can imagine, this concerns me a little. Historically, PW dropped a total of three points from 1965 to 1966 (according to the game), but in our case it was more like eight per turn. My control efforts were extremely successful, leading to three or four Doves per turn, another three for the coup, another four for my campaign. I think the game hinged on two events, one of which was a matter of luck the other of which was a misplay by Michel. The first was the lopsided battle in Zone IV that opened the door for the Mekong Delta campaign, combined with the coup that locked up a lot of the ARVN forces in the south. That said, Michel should have spent 1966 fighting me in the south, perhaps bringing forces from the northern coast down via sealift rather than trying to fight his own campaign in the north. Even having drawn the campaign card, it could simply be held in hand, and knowing how well I was doing in the south it would have been just as effective to confront me rather than allow me a free point per card play. Of course, this was my second game and I'm far from being an expert on the system, but it's what I would have tried.

As a side note, I was able to score a full size map from the 'Geek (the game comes with a very cramped map, one that has areas that are almost completely covered by the huge control markers - Worthington games doesn't seem to understand how development works, and hence why I very rarely buy anything from them) that included most of the tables and other information right on it. Thanks to Mike for getting this to me very quickly, my opponent and I both appreciated it immensely.

Concerns with balance aside, this is a quick playing and very cool CDG. It has some major differences with the "standard" games such as Hannibal or Paths of Glory, such as having three decks (one "neutral" deck that is shuffled and distributed equally between the players to shuffle into their own decks), a set of campaign cards that give you considerable control over where you wish to focus your efforts, and events that are part of resource point play rather than separate. Being able to stockpile resource points is also very useful. I think stockpiling those points is mandatory for the Blue (south) player in the first turn to help avoid a coup, which is perhaps the thing that hurt Michel the most in the first turn.

I was all ready to head back to the room at this point, but the Up Front tournament people were looking for one more player, so I got to take the Germans against Mat's Americans. If my UF game against Michel was a classic, this one was so bizarre as to almost defy description. First of all, you get very used to being able to dump off cards fast as the Soviet. While the Germans have a larger hand and can do stuff *and* discard a single card every turn, if all you do is draw Rally cards (as I did for a good half of the first deck) it's kind of a slow game. I figure I spent more than 50% of my turns discarding one card and drawing a card, usually something completely useless. In 90 minutes we got through one and a half decks and then Mat had to leave. Too bad, as the game was promising, although Mat was in a stronger position.

So it was that I got in two and a half games of Up Front (reinforcing my understanding of the game immensely in the process) as well as a game of Hearts and Minds, both relatively new games to me. Both are games that seem to be a bit fragile in terms of the game tipping to one side or the other with the right luck, but both good fun. Up Front in particular shouldn't take more than a couple of hours to play, and H&M has a scenario system that gives a lot of control over how long a game will take. I'm very interested in trying it out starting in different years to see how that affects game play.

And it was evening and morning, the first day.

Prep For BottosCon

2011-11-01T11:30:00.000-07:00

I've been doing some prep work in anticipation of attending BottosCon, a small wargaming convention just south of Vancouver, BC. This will be my first international convention, meaning that I will leave the USA to attend, and aside from WBC West the only multi-day wargaming-specific event I'll attend this year. Going somewhere out of state to wargame (and I can't count Vancouver, WA, it's 30 minutes away) was a gaming goal for me this year.

The con is a little more than two full days, running from around noon Friday until 5pm on Sunday, although I will need to leave by 2pm to get through customs. I'm mostly playing games I've played only a few times, although they are all games I'm happy to be playing.

Because part of my goal is to meet people in the hobby, many of which will be from the Seattle area but a few from Oregon, I'm also trying to play games that are relatively short, meaning up to six hours. We are also prohibited from using the hotel's meeting space during the wee hours, but I'm hoping to get a lot of quality gaming in regardless. I'm too old to stay up all night anyway, especially with a seven hour drive home on Sunday.

Here's the list of games I'm playing (and bringing) in chronological order, followed by a list I'm hopeful to squeeze in somewhere...

Up Front Tournament - I've had this game since the late 90's when AH when down. I'd tried it out in the late 80's but it didn't really stick with me, and I bought it more because of it's imminent monetary value than anything else. Considering I also bought the now highly sought after Banzai/Desert War set as well, I could almost certainly see $300-$400 for the set, which is in excellent shape. But I'm not selling, as I've discovered a pretty cool game once you wade through the ruleset and grasp some of the basic concepts. I suspect that playing Combat Commander has helped, as I had little experience with tactical systems the first time I saw the game and CC took a few things from UF. Regardless, I expect to be roundly thrashed as there's a trophy involved and I've played about four games ftf and another eight or so solo, and I have no idea how guns or vehicles work. Still, should be fun. We start this around noon on Friday.

Hearts & Minds - Worthington Games put out this CDG about American involvement in the Vietnamese Civil War a few years back, and it's never quite come out. Turns out the first edition of the rules were not what you would call "clear" so I guess that was a good idea. There are second ed rules that are still in need of a bit of better organization, but at least they make sense now. Chuck and I played the first two turns before we realized what a difficult job the Blue player has in terms of keeping Political Will up. In the first turn alone, thanks in large part to a coup in the South, Chuck went from 10 Hawks (essentially -10 points, good for Blue) to -3 points. I played a Mekong Delta campaign the next turn that got me down to 3-4 Doves (good for Red, essentially + points) which was enough to win an auto-victory. Part of the problem was the large loss of ARVN units that drove the coup, which is a 3 point swing, so Chuck should have been trying to avoid battles with large numbers of enemy forces while pacifying as many areas as possible. I'll be playing the Red side in my game against an experienced player, so I will get a good sense of how to play the game well. I'll be playing this on Friday late afternoon into the evening.

Urban Sprawl - Brand spanking new Chad Jensen game on zoning regulations. Really. I've set the game up and run part of a turn, and while it seems to be a pretty "thin" game in some respects in terms of theme, at the same time my experience with Herr Jensen's designs is that they are more than the sum of their parts. Action points buy planning cards (a type of money) to build buildings that produce money and prestige and also give vocations that can also generate money and prestige. There are also local elections involved. Not as sexy in theme as Dominant Species, but that game is so brilliant that I've got to give this a good shot. One minor concern going in - end of turn can result in a lot of computing of position relative to other players. That may work out well, it may not, but I'm expecting the early game to be a little slow with new players. This is Saturday morning.

No Retreat! - I've played the first nine turns of this game a couple of times now, and like it more each time. The cards make this a tense affair for both sides where it's critical to pay attention to what might happen. I also really like the way the evolution of the Red Army takes place over time in an organic and (once you understand how things work) elegant way. This is my Saturday afternoon game.

Dominant Species - This may end up being a different game, as I'm not sure playing with six will be a satisfying experience, but at the same time I have yet to try it with that many (so far it's been three and, usually, four players). The game was the best "heavy" game to come out of 2010, and in my opinion it took out the previous title holder in that position, Die Macher. This is Saturday evening for me.

PQ-17 - I am teaching this game on Sunday morning into the early afternoon. I do not expect to finish, but I do expect the other players to know how things work. I am reviewing the rules and the extended example of play in preparation as I've only played three times and this game has a lot of subsystems and a ruleset that can be difficult to parse at times. That said, the heart of the game is really quite elegant and a fresh take on naval search rules (the designer took a page from The Burning Blue and uses cards to determine the outcome of a search) that works quickly and smoothly. Initial reception to the game was it was too fiddly to learn, so it's become my pet project to get others interested in it.

Other games I am bringing that might see play:

Fields of Fire - There's a teaching game of this fantastic if poorly developed solitaire game going on, and I'm bringing my copy as I think it's much better to have players learning as they play rather than watching others. Doubtful I'll be involved unless PQ-17 falls through

Gears of War - Awesome "shooter" game similar to Descent or Doom but fully co-op and with a very clever AI system that is very effective. Others have expressed interest in playing, but my schedule is a little full.

Combat Commander - My first pick for what to play if I'm at loose ends for a couple of hours. I'm bringing the whole shootin' match with this one, all of the battle packs and boxes.

Ottoman Sunset - On the very off chance that I find myself with nothing to do and no opponents, I'm bringing this cool States of Siege game that plays in about 45 minutes.

Not much in the way of heavy games, but that's OK. All have interesting choices to make and a lot to think about with fairly "breezy" gameplay. I think that's a good choice when a good part of my focus is on meeting other players.

Because this con takes place out of the country, I don't plan to blog about the experience until I'm home, but there *will* be bloggage. Assuming I get through customs.

Sleeve If You Have To, Sleeve If You Need To, The Actual Post

2011-10-18T10:36:00.000-07:00

Sorry about that last post, the wrist rest for my mouse was bumping the Enter key of my keypad. Here's what I *meant* to say...

Bonus points if you can recognize the obscure (if you don't have small children around) reference given by the title...

I'm a bit of a sleeve nut. I sleeve nearly everything I own that has cards that are larger than the teeny ones you get with Arkham Horror, which just seems silly. If the deck will need to be reshuffled multiple times, then it gets sleeved. Dominion is a big exception, largely because I didn't sleeve the first set and now it would cost well over $200 to sleeve it as I would like to (I only use premium sleeves, usually Dragon or Fantasy Flight, as they improve the game experience rather than detract from it). Plus all of the expansions for that game fit into my original Dominion box without sleeves and wouldn't with them. I guess I could just pull the Alchemy cards, it's not like I use them, but still a big investment for a game that doesn't get played that much.

I'm getting ready to play in an Up Front tournament at BottosCon in November, and wanted to have my Up Front cards sleeved. The FFG Green cards worked well for this purpose, the Purple cards are just a little too big and I've found with sleeves that you want the right size if at all possible. So all 162 cards are sleeved, and let me tell you that they have created a slightly different problem. Sure, shuffling is going to suck, but with 162 cards it's going to suck sleeved or not. No, I'm talking about merely stacking the damned things. It's like stacking wet eels, they slip around all over the place and create an unholy mess, even when broken up into a few mini-stacks.

So, after procrastination about doing this for years, I went out and got discard trays like casinos use. These come in various sizes, but 4-6 decks seems to be the sweet spot. These are not deck shoes, that dispense cards, but instead hold the cards in a simple plastic form. I get nervous about the deck shoes as they tend to bend cards as they come out and while that's cool in casinos where the decks get used a few times at best, not so good for the generally inferior quality cards that come with board games.

I got two 6-deck trays at about $16 for the pair from Amazon (they have several choices on their site), not including shipping. They came a few days ago and I got to try them out with Up Front, the game that finally convinced me to buy them.

These things are awesome.

The cards stay in place, they aren't slipping around very much at all, which I was a little worried about. There's room for about 2/3rd of another UF deck if I wanted it, and I supposed I could have grabbed a 4-deck tray instead, but I'm happy with these for now and I consider them to be future proofed for when the 19th Talisman expansion comes out. Right now the clear plastic of the upper portions of the trays are in great shape, which will change as they get dragged around, so they look good. I expect I'll get a few oohs and aaahs at BottosCon, especially if I set them up to my Dice Boot (which, I fully understand, has no use in a diceless game like Up Front, but that won't stop me from setting it up).

Here's the thing about all of the accessories that I, as a board gamer and war gamer, like to use - all of them enhance the play experience. That's why we're there, to enjoy the whole experience, from the tactile feel of the pieces to how well the cards shuffle to having dice with a decent heft in your hand. Counter trays, baggies, Plano boxes, sleeves, discard trays, poster frames or plexi, all of these go into making the game a more pleasant experience, in large part so that the game itself becomes easy to focus on. As such, I have no problem spending "more" money for these accessories, within reason. Dominion is a prime example of how I should have jumped into sleeving earlier with this game, although I'm happy with the storage solution I have right now.

I should mention that in UF, you discard face down, so it's important to remember which deck is the draw deck, but I fix that by simply putting the deck tracking counters on top of the draw pile. That's been about the only drawback - I don't want to put a sticker on the trays yet while they still look nice, but fortunately there's an easy fix.

Now I'm going to go out and buy a ton of interlocking bead containers for games that have lots of bits like Le Havre that Plano boxes don't work for.

Ameritrash Solitaire Shootout!!!

2011-09-30T18:41:00.000-07:00

I really should know better than to go to any game store thinking I'm going to pick up something like card sleeves and nothing else. While I was at the Wilsonville Hobbytown (a great store, btw, if you live in the area, they have one of the top 5 boardgame selections in the Metro area), I picked up three new games that are all solitaire-friendly and I've managed to get them all on the table. Here are my early impressions of each:

Rune Age - Those of you who are burned out on deckbuilding games probably won't find enough here to rekindle your love of the genre, but you might as well try. I hear that this game takes a few plays before you start to see the deeper game (such as it is) which includes knowing when to attack other players and when to leave well enough alone.

The big diff in RA is that it's scenario based, so there's a defined pool of common cards that everyone can draw from, but also the ability to draw from your own private piles (and there are four factions to play, at least in the core set). You can attack your opponents, or the game can be cooperative, depending on the scenario. it can also be played solo for two of the four scenarios.

Also interesting is that there's a multi-dimensional economy. In Ascension, you have Runes (money) and whatever it is you attack with. Here, there's gold that lets you buy from your private stock, influence that lets you buy from the common cards (including gold cards), and whatever it is that lets you attack other players, enemy cards, and cities/strongholds.

Each scenario also has event cards that show up once per full turn that can threaten your home base or give you things to attack to get more cards that give you influence, gold, etc. It's a little hard to feel the flow until you've played, but suffice it to say each scenario has a flow that you'll go through and thinning your deck is critical.

Perhaps the two biggest differences are that you have cards that are Rewards, which you get from defeating some enemies, cities, and strongholds. These are always in play and are exhausted like in a CCG to use them, although they are almost all in influence with a couple that give gold. Since Gold is important early and influence in the midgame, at least in the Rise of the Dragonlords scenario I played twice, that may be a little on the scripted side, but I can't say since I haven't taken a close look at the other scenarios (I like to be surprised, which mostly turns out well unless you are the Keeper in Mansions of Madness).

The other huge difference is that you can spend influence to keep cards over to the next hand, although they do count against your hand limit.

Solitaire is interesting (and not something I've mastered yet), but I think this game will really shine with three or four players and increased interaction. Some of the events go after players who have the most or the least of something, so there's some need to be paying attention to what everyone else is doing.
Component quality is a little mixed. I found the cardstock to be pretty thin and bendy, and you'll want some sleeves (American board standard size, although Euro will work in a pinch but be a little oversized), and there's some, God help us, more recycled art from the Runebound franchise, but it *is* a Runebound game (mostly, I suspect, to reuse much of the art) and really, if you're going to let the art stop you there's not much I can say in this blog that's going to be of use to you.

As a solitaire game, it's kind of cool, certainly easier to set up and get going with than my incredibly bloated Thunderstone set, and the system is no pushover. So far I like it.

One last thing - this has been compared to the LotR LCG meets Dominion and there is considerable truth to that, but you shouldn't let your opinion of either of those games stop you from giving this a try because it's really not like either game, it just has elements from both.

Elder Sign - Where Rune Age is a game I can't wait to play with other people, Elder Sign is a game that I'm going to be *very* particular about asking to play. When they say it's an Arkham Horror Yahtzee game, they aren't far off the mark, but that's also an unfair assessment. The game is basically a pick a card with specific targets, then roll to try to take them. There's a lot of resource management involved, such as deciding to burn cards that give you an extra (and, in some cases better, die) or give you the chance to set dice aside that you'll need for later. With most of the cards having multiple groups you have to build on, and since you can only complete one "task" per roll, being able to set aside a die can be very useful.

Let's be clear, though - despite components that are literally dripping with theme, the game itself is fairly themeless when it comes right down to it. I would also think that downtime would be a huge problem with anything more than two or three players (eight would be hellish and would require considerable alcohol for me to even think of playing), and I suspect that this will stay a solitaire title for me with occasional two-player gaming. And I like the game solitaire, since you're always busy and pushing your luck with the dice. There are lots of Gods and Investigators, so a lot of replay in the box.
I played two games and it seemed like everything I rolled was pushing my luck. That said, I seemed to make mistake after mistake in my first two games, especially not taking my investigator's special ability into account, and certainly missing the Elder God's power.

ES makes Alea Iacta Est look like a deep strategy game, but it still has it's charms, especially in a solitaire role.

Gears of War - While I have not played this title, I think that anyone who has ever played a first person shooter a la Doom/Quake/Call of Duty/ad nauseum will appreciate this game. I also think that people who liked Doom: The Boardgame but found it kind of fussy and, uhm, colorful may find that this game has taken that idea and done it right.

No Overlord, just an AI (and a pretty good one). Multiple scenarios and random board setup to make things interesting after you've played the scenario once or twice. Very nice sculpts, although not painted (and some of the COGs, or friendlies, look extremely similar, not a problem for playing solitaire). An extremely quick and entertaining sequence of play that will prevent serious downtime issues (and a certain amount of cooperative play potential even when it isn't your turn).

And what a story this game generates. I am not quite done with the first scenario, Emergence (scenarios define the tiles you'll use to create the map, the critters you'll blow away, and the AI deck makeup) has been a bit of a bitch for me, actually. The entire point is to blow away all of the emergence markers on the board, of which there is only one near the exit at the start, and to do that you need grenades and while you start with one you will almost certainly need more because there are AI cards that generate them. And even then you have to roll an "omen" symbol on one or more dice when you roll, and there's only one face that has it on the attack dice.

Which is why I managed, in nine attacks on three emergence holes, to close them all. It took two trips back to the grenade store, found most of the way back to the starting point of the scenario, and one near-death experience, to finally get that damned last emergence hole collapsed. Now I just have to kill eight or nine baddies, two of which are immune to my lancer chainsaw extension. That should be easier.

One interesting note: Your hand of cards? The ones you only get two of a turn, that you can't draw into if you're at your hand limit, that you also use to do all those "not my turn" thinks like overwatch and dodge? They're also your health, so if you use them to pick stuff up or dodge as well as the mandatory order play every turn, you're dropping your health points as well. Nice!

I got through two hours of learning the game as I went (which works, although be prepared to do a lot of back and forth looking for things - FFG's editorial policy is in full effect with this game! Plus be aware that you will have no idea which minis go with which locusts (bad guys) unless you look on the back page) and the whole time I was entertained, at least when I wasn't going back and forth in the rules.

This was a bit of an impulse buy for me, but my friend Jesse (owner of the store) said it was really really good and he was right. I'm looking forward to giving this a try, maybe this coming Tuesday at our regular game night.

I mean, how can you not like a game where when you drop a critter you might get a new weapon or ammo? Really great stuff.

So there you go. Three games, all of which were pretty promising and two of which were good solitaire games (and the third serviceable, but looking good for multiplayer). And, God help me, expandable. Good thing all of them have room in the box once you take out the inserts - FFG hasn't figured that out either, but then again they probably don't need to - we keep buying this stuff anyway.

Breakthrough: Cambrai - Breakout or Break-In?

2011-09-29T11:48:00.000-07:00

When I discovered wargames at the age of 10 circa 1973, wargames came in two flavors - Avalon Hill hex and counter igo-ugo games, and SPI hex and counter igo-ugo games. It wasn't until the 80's that designers decided that a hexagonal grid placed over a map and an entire player taking their turn with little involvement from the other player wasn't written in stone for the hobby. Through the rest of the century and into the present day, wargame design has seen lots of new styles emerge, from the card-driven game to the "block" game, to maps based on point-to-point or area movement. There is still a definite appeal to the hex-based wargame, but it's not the only game in town anymore.

Perhaps one of the most intriguing and fresh design approaches has been that of the area/impulse game, which I will simply call AIM for the purposes of this discussion. While I am no historian, it seems to me that the first widely known game was Storm Over Arnhem, published by Avalon Hill, followed in turn by Thunder Over Cassino and Turning Point: Stalingrad. It was this last game that got my attention, around the time I started returning to wargaming after my long lack of opponents starting in 1981 when I went to college and gaming meant D&D for several years.

All of those games were novel and different and set in locations where everything was a complete slog, especially in TP:S, as every combat produced rubble that turned the entire map into a WW1 Western Front simulation. Historical yes, but interesting to game? The fact that I never got past the learning scenario, which seemed to me to be not only a good size in terms of what I could commit to a long term game as well as enough of the flavor of the system to hold my attention without overdoing it, speaks volumes.

Of course, I had no opponents, so I was playing solitaire, which while interesting did not show off the true value of the games, which was that you had relatively little downtime since you activated a single area and could only operate with the units that started the impulse in that area. The randomness of the turn length was another attractor, as you never knew if you were going to get to do as much as you wanted to in a turn (this actually makes AIM games good solitaire exercises too).

And then, in the 90's, AH published Breakout: Normandy, which has, until now, been the gold standard in AIMs. The game had all of the hallmarks of the earlier AIMs but in a more mobile setting, even with the bocage terrain. To this day it remains one of my top 10 wargames although I have played it nowhere near as much as I would like to.

Since that time, there have been other attempts to create games in BK:N's image. There were successes (Monty's Gamble), and not-so-much games (Royal Tank Corps), at least in my book. The genre got out of WW2 into WW1 (RTC again) as well as at least one game set in the American Civil War. However, unlike card-driven wargames, which took off so much that it got to a point where a relatively small percentage of games coming out were of high quality, AIMs came out at a much slower pace. Since 2000, there have been dozens of CDGs, a handful of AIMs.

Along comes Breakthrough: Cambrai (BT:C) in 2011. This is a game that has been waiting for publication for about three years since it made it's preorder numbers at MMP, kind of a long wait for that sort of thing, but then most of the smaller operations were pretty shook up by the economic issues of 2008 and the resultant disruption of printer services, many of which were the only services which had worked with wargame publishers. I'm not saying that's the only reason, but it has had an effect on the industry that most gamers don't seem to be aware of.

BT:C walks in the footsteps to some extent of Royal Tank Corps, which modeled the same British offensive in late 1917. There aren't a lot of operational-level games that cover specific WW1 battles that take place much after 1914 in the West, largely because the offensives were of limited effectiveness at a strategic level. Not to say there aren't games out there, just that there aren't many compared to the other periods/conflicts that are commonly gamed. The Cambrai Offensive, however, stands out because it was the first use of massed tank formations and very nearly achieved it's goals. It certainly showed that tanks could be effective on the battlefield, a lesson the Germans learned very well and carried into their blitzkrieg doctrines in the early years of 1939. As such, it's no surprise that there are multiple games on the subject.

Of course, WW1 was a very different conflict from WW2, and so the game system needed to have some changes in order to attain the right feel. Here's a partial list:

Alternating Impulses - A big part of how the game works has to do with the Sunset DR, which when compared with the number of the current impulse can change the weather and also end the turn. Most previous titles would see each side have their turn in a single impulse, so in Impulse 3 both sides would get one chance to activate an area or pass. In BT:C, the player with the initiative starts with impulse 0, then the other player takes impulse 1. The result is a shorter "day" and a faster game. This makes considerable sense given how much less coordination units were able to exploit in that earlier pre-wireless radio (at least at the necessary level on the battlefield - units were enormous and extremely fragile at the time). I should also note that sunset DRs only take place during the British turn, so the British are guaranteed to have the last impulse barring a Pass impulse choice.
Less Exhaustion - In most AIMs, units that are activate for movement tend to become exhausted (flipped to a non-moving and less-defensible side) and must be refitted during each night phase to return to combat readiness. In BT:C, the units that tend to get exhausted are the tanks, which are readily refit, although often at a less effective level. All of the tanks (which are also all British, of course - tanks were not, and arguably are still not, a defensive weapon) have a 50% chance to lose 33% of their starting effectiveness when they are exhausted at full strength, and it goes downhill from there. The Germans, being defenders through much of the core game, are going to take hits with their infantry and garrisons, but get to refit them more easily. The garrisons, which are essentially "pre-exhausted" units with an extra step, can come back like Russians at Stalingrad, and the British can "dismount" cavalry units to refit infantry, but otherwise this entire subsystem feels very different from predecessor games.
Abstracted Artillery - RTC had an elaborate artillery system that was a little gamey (you rolled to see if units ran out of shells or not) and time-consuming. BT:C, on the other hand, has abstracted artillery to a fairly small set of options, but ones that can have a big effect on the game. The idea of Bombardments from earlier titles is present only in the very limited Hurricane Barrage system, which will usually produce, at best, two attacks per full turn per side, and with no guarantee at all that you will ever get them back. For the Germans, having a fresh barrage marker available offboard also means a defensive bennie in combat, which also acts as a nice way to demonstrate the German defensive stiffening as the offensive goes on. The larger effect has to do with support markers, which can be used either as Rolling Barrages that lower movement costs in an area or as Direct Support which increments your attack value, effectively the same as having an extra fresh unit in the attack. Support markers are generally created through die rolls at the end of the day, and you can either bank the points for later or request them for the next turn, but once requested they must be used in the next turn or lost. This makes for a nice decision point in the game, although obviously the Brits will choose to take them early in general and the Germans will probably bank the first points they get. However, don't discount the ability to build them up so that you have a turn with a lot of lowered movement costs and buffed up attacks.
"Scripted" Opening Offensive Moves - BK:N saw the attacking side landing at predesignated beaches, and MG:MG saw paratroopers working in very specific operational areas. BT:C has the British units limited to very specific areas and zones for the first two turns. For example, infantry divisions can't move into an area in the first turns if there is a division designator in the space that doesn't match their own division number. Tanks have more flexibility, but there are red numbers and blue numbers and the tanks are limited to those areas based on the colored dot on the counter. That means more tanks in the blue areas in the eastern part of the map. Once a breakthrough is achieved, the restrictions are lifted in the "green fields beyond" as well as once the initial plan makes contact with the enemy, but it does force the British to a pretty specific set of opening possibilities. While this may sound like a drawback to the game, it actually does a couple of things besides model the historical doctrine. For one, it lets new players start with a relatively small number of choices early on. Secondly, it allows the game to model the release schedule of the cavalry divisions, which were still at this time considered to be the units that would actually make and exploit the breakout (the tanks were considered to be the spearhead, but one that would break in the process and not be good beyond the initial fighting). Three areas on the board, when controlled by the Brits in the first turn, give immediate reinforcements available for use on the next impulse, and one also gives an infantry division plus an extra tank unit.
Haig, You Dick - It's great to have turns that can end at almost any time, so why not apply it to the entire game? Historically, the British commander was very nervous about his flanks, as well as his forward progress, and this is modeled in the game as the "Haig roll" that takes place every turn starting on the second. In essence, the Brit rolls 1d6 and if the number is 7 or greater he can continue. Yeah, you read that right. The Brit can improve his chances by contesting various areas - 1 and 6 (not 5 as is in the rules and player aid sheet, the only really big mistake in the rules aside from some unfortunate multiple usages of the word "assault") which are kind of far from the tanks and thus take a little more effort to contest, as well as areas on the eastern side of the board, defined by a canal running north-south that correspond to the general goal of the offensive. The flank areas give +2 drms to the roll each for being contested or controlled, while the eastern areas are +1 for contested and +2 for control. To guarantee the offensive continuing, the Brit player must contest the two flank areas and control one eastern area, which pretty much dictates what needs doing in the first two turns.
He's Not That Bad, Really! - Fortunately for the Brit, he also starts with the advantage, which does two things that are a bit different from earlier games in the genre. First, whoever has the advantage has the first impulse in a turn. This can result in a double impulse, which can be devastating if played effectively. Secondly, it can also be used to override some game results, although not like in earlier games where it let you make a reroll. Instead, there are six or seven very specific things it will do, such as improve an attack from a repulse to a stalemate, which is extremely useful, or allow a tank refit to preserve the existing quality level of that brigade without a roll. It also lets you override the Haig roll, so the British player who uses his advantage for any other purpose in the first two turns is a gambler, or in fact at any point in the game before he can guarantee the offensive will continue by taking the necessary areas and contesting or holding them. Unfortunately, these choices are not part of the player aid card, which is otherwise excellent, so you'll be looking them up frequently. Fortunately, you will internalize them by the third or fourth game turn.

The result is a game that stays true to the AIM philosophy but does things in a different way for a different time, and in a fairly elegant manner.

Component quality is good for this sort of thing - paper map that has clear information available while still being aesthetically pleasing; 5/8" counters that are mostly readable (I find the soldier figures in the background to be a little distracting from the counter factors, and the division numbers along the top bar are a bit small for my aging eyes); a concise and mostly clear rulebook aside from the problem mentioned above; a minimum of chrome beyond the initial turns, and that very well documented and understandable chrome; and good player aids, although I think that having setup cards for units, especially with this small a number of units, is redundant given the fact that their entry turns and areas are given on the units themselves (I understand it's good to know you have all the units you are supposed to have, but this can be done by including those four cardstock sheets into the playbook, and four is a good number of pages to add at a time). Minor nits at best. I'd also liked to have seen bridge counters that said "captured" rather than "intact" as in other games, but we just use the counters in that manner (unmarked bridges are German).

I have only really gotten in a single game with my good friend HazMatt, who took the British as I thought it would a) be more interesting and b) be relatively accessible for a guy who hadn't played an AIM game before. In fact, I think this is an excellent learning game into the system, much more so than Storm Over Stalingrad, which while an excellent game and a good game for newer players (I even suggested it for Matt and his 10 year old son to play) is sufficiently different from other games in the system to be a poor gateway game to most of the other games in the genre. However, I could see it being a good introduction to BT:C, and then on to MG:MG, and finally BK:N.

Matt had some mediocre rolls early, with his initial Hurricane barrages only really doing any real damage in one area in the middle of the board. The first turn's sunset DRs don't affect the day ending, although they do affect weather (which in turn affects Hurricane barrages and whether or not you get your once-per-impulse air unit attack bump), so the Brits will have up to seven impulses and the Germans six. Most of the German impulses will involve trying to blow up bridges, but there is some opportunity for moving up reserves in the first turn. As such, the Brits can't hope to take all of the cavalry release areas, some of which require moving through other German held areas, as well as the two flank areas for the Haig roll, so it's important to pick a couple to put your focus on. It's also important to be thinking about how to use the 12 support markers you've gotten for the turn. Matt focused on the Red areas, the ones more to the West and on the flank, and made some good progress but with very little movement in the Blue areas, although he was off to a good start there. In fact, he penetrated very nearly to area 6, which I would have guessed would be very tough to get to. Since one of the victory conditions is to have fresh supplied cavalry in one of three zones on the north (German) side of the board at turn end, it wasn't a terrible strategy at all. However, he did not release any of his cavalry on the first turn, although they enter normally on turn 2 if unreleased. Even more reason to focus, as you probably have a breakthrough if you control a cavalry release area.

The second turn saw the Germans reinforcing area 6 only to be blown out, so now area 1 was contested and the Haig roll was at +4. However, Matt had used his initiative to turn a repulse in area 1 into a stalemate, allowing him to stay in the area and contest it, so he really needed one of those southern areas and the Germans weren't really cooperating. Because moving a unit doesn't exhaust it, Matt took the chance that he might be able to exploit my relative paunch of decent units near the victory point area (they were in the southeast corner aside from the eliminated units blown out in area 6) and brought up a cavalry division to try to achieve victory quickly. However, there isn't a lot of unit density in this game and I was able to stall him just long enough and get good enough combat results to prevent him from advancing, although he was getting up to 13 of the 20 areas he needed to control that would also give him a victory. Fortunately for me, the turn ended fairly quickly although Haig didn't fail the gut check and we went on to turn 3.

Turn three also went fairly quickly. Matt was now trying to cross the southern end of the canal and as such left his backfield open, which I exploited successfully the previous turn. However, I hadn't noticed that I didn't have much in the way of reinforcements in that area on turn 3 and was a little at risk, but Matt's attempt to resupply his southeastern units failed and things were looking good. He made a couple of shots at getting his cavalry into the sudden death zones, but it was a long way from his side of the board and close to mine, and I had some good units coming in to screen them. Sadly, the turn again ended quickly, and this time Haig lost his nerve and called off the offensive. Probably a smart idea strategically - many of Matt's tanks units were either down to their last Imperial gallons of petrol, and his overall position hadn't developed quite as well as he'd hoped. Still, aside from leaving his backfield (Zone H) open to a counterthrust by my infantry division, as well as giving up the Initiative, although that was not a terrible decision as it involved a drm for that roll, Matt made good decisions through the game despite it being his first AIM. It would be interesting to see what a more easterly focus rather than northern might accomplish, and to me that's a very good thing in this game.

My initial impressions of the game are as follows:

This is an excellent introductory game for new wargamers, especially those coming from the multiplayer strategy niche of the hobby. Area-based maps will be familiar to many players, the math is pretty accessible to a 12-year old (or precocious 10 year old, and aren't they all when they're yours), and the initial situation is limited enough that you can learn as you go through the first two turns. It's also short enough to be easily playable in a short afternoon or long evening for a first game, more like 2-3 hours with the core scenario with experienced players. Certainly the rules can largely be taught as you go, which is also nice in an introductory game.
This is also an excellent game for grognards as well, although smaller unit counts and simpler situations typically mean that the game will have fewer paths to resolution than more complex games (but not always). Time will tell on that score. Certainly there are some things to try out, and being an AIM it's very good when played solitaire as there is no hidden information and the turn length is largely out of the player's hands.
Great to see the system move to a different era successfully. The same designer has an ACW game using many of the same modifications to the system, although I have not played it as that's not really my era. Certainly a more successful, IMHO, transition than RTC was.
Multiple scenarios allow for quite a bit of variety regarding time commitment as well as situation. The core scenario runs for one week and covers the British offensive, but you can play the following week and the German counterattack as well, either alone or in conjunction with the first week. Unlike other games in the series that would only continue if the game was more or less undecided (based on a specific VP count), this game appears to be the kind where you can predict how long you'll be playing for. Few AIMs actually have multiple scenarios, usually just extensions to the core game, so this is a nice addition. I recommend the scenario that goes for two or three turns for new players, and the game can be taught and played to completion in three hours (about what we took at our slightly leisurely pace).
The designer made some definite choices about the scope of the game (RTC included the flanks in much more detail) that I think were good ones, certainly the arty rules are very clean and effective. Unit count and density on the map is extremely manageable, so no tweezers required (which I consider to be a good thing). He includes a very good set of designer's notes at the end that are well worth reading not only for his rationale for his choices but also considerable insight into the battle that you might not get from play because of the level of abstraction chosen for that particular element.

While I won't make a recommendation with such a small amount of play, I will say that if you are in one of the following categories this is a game you should look into:

Are interested in AIMs but have found BK:N's ruleset daunting;
Are a solitaire wargamer;
Have a need for a shorter or less complex wargame, possible for play with younger family members;
Enjoy or are curious about AIMs;
Have an interest in WW1 battles;
Want to see the effect of the first battlefield use of massed tank formations;

All in all I'm very pleased with this game at a time when I'm feeling a little saturated with new wargames and so many new releases turn out to be disappointments once they hit the table. At my age, approaching 50, I'm much more interested in shorter games with easily graspable mechanisms and systems, and they're much more likely to see table time rather than be relegated to the shelf for play "some day". BT:C has already broken through to my play table and will again in the near future, so my very early verdict is, without question:

BREAKTHROUGH!

Sunriver Euro Retreat 2011, Wrap-Up

2011-09-19T11:23:00.000-07:00

The Sunriver Euro Retreat for 2011 is history. What worked this year and what didn't?

Perhaps the most obvious issue was a relatively small number of gamers. Through Friday we had six, with seven from Friday evening on (with the first game of Saturday an exception). That's perhaps the fewest we've had. Ideally, I like to see nine as it breaks up so well and allows people to play nearly any game without regard to number (3 and 6, 4 and 5, even 2 and 7 if necessary). Of course, you can't play Sticheln with nine... That said, I chose games that were good for six, four, three, and two and felt that we had a good mix. One good thing about a large collection is that you have choices regardless of the number of people involved, although choosing those games to bring with you requires a bit of Plan B thinking in case the number changes at the last minute.

Food is always interesting. I enjoy eating at Hola!, and I hope everyone else does. I particularly like dining out one evening as this group enjoys each other's company whether we're gaming or just hanging, and that's really nice. I usually provide lasagna and salad, and this year prep seemed to be effortless, perhaps because we have a new (and fully functioning) range unit - the old one was so decrepit that the broiler element cracked and fell apart. Game timing was also good for me to do this effectively, unlike some past years. The food was apparently popular enough for everyone to eat it all, so I was happy about that too. The only bad night was Thursday, with the Blondie's Pizza that I found barely edible. Had I been on my own I would have tossed it all and gone out to eat somewhere else. We won't order from them again.

We seemed to have more alcohol this year, and I think I am the guy driving that to a certain extent. Not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing, but I do know that as far as I could tell (and that includes me) no one was an unpleasant drinker. It was certainly good fun to have some mild competition and smack talk about which spirit was the best, and it's nice to try some different brands even if they aren't your cuppa. Alcohol has not been anything other than a very minor component of the event for me until the past year, so I hope that if anyone ever feels it's getting in the way of everyone enjoying themselves they will let me know and I'll ask people to pull it back a bit, myself included. That said, it didn't seem to be a problem this year at all. Hey, it's not like we start drinking before lunch. ;-)

My favorite game of the weekend was almost certainly Ascending Empires. Near-simultaneous play with flickage, bluffing, multiple paths to victory, etc. It feels kind of like playing pool in a way, as you move around the table so much and turns go quickly. Some said it brought nothing new to the table, I believe it brought a very fresh approach to the 4X style of games, which I normally am not that excited about (the latest Civilization game excepted). This was also my most anticipated game.

My least favorite game was, as noted, A Few Acres of Snow. I think a lot of my lack of reaction had to do with having an expectation of it being more of a wargame but also more of a deckbuilding game instead of a hand management game. Considering that I felt I had no control over the later parts of the game, although I freely admit I had no idea of what I was doing, I suppose I should give it another shot, but the truth is that Wallace is starting to wear on me and after being unimpressed with games like Waterloo I will probably be trying before I buy with his games from now on. There are lots of choices so I don't feel too badly about this. Of course, I did have a terrible impression of Age of Steam the first time we tried to play, and Steam is now one of my favorites (not Steam Barons, which is terrible except for the board and the bits). So there you go.

My biggest disappointment was not getting to play MattG's incredible (and incredibly packaged) War of the Ring. I have paid nearly $200 for games before, and now it seems there are enough monsters I want over $100 that it's become de rigeur after being a bit shocked about buying a $90 game (Triumph of Chaos) some years back. Certainly Case Blue cost me just under $180. I cannot imagine paying $400 unless said game comes with desirable sexual favors. And even then. Maybe window washing and weeding in my garden too. Still, this is a gorgeous edition, with readable cards, painted minis, and a huge board with tons of room. Matt, we will have to get this on the table at some point.

The most hilarious moment, and I'm very sorry MattG, was when I pointed out that Matt needed to avoid ramming my ship if he wanted to stop me from winning in Ascending Empires, and then he rammed my ship. I am a bad person. ;-)

OK, I also greatly enjoyed almost all of the RPG game, where I called Chuck's character Omar a terrorist on a regular basis. I hope my over the top role-playing wasn't too offensive or annoying, next time I'll play a saint (which will be an equal departure for me). I'd do this again in the future, it was a very nice change of pace and I think we all had a great time.

Things I did for the first time that I will probably do again - I enjoyed being able to sleep in and leave with minimal work (although I did discover that the dishwasher is not dissolving the powdered detergent enough, a function of too cold of water that I suspect has to do more with the age of the unit than anything else, a discovery that required me to wash the entire load by hand on Monday morning, delaying getting the wash going by nearly an hour. Yay). I also liked having an evening to myself the night before. In general, taking a slower pace in getting out of the house worked really well for me and I'll probably do it in the future.

I also thought that the "put all of the recycleable/returnable stuff in front of the fireplace" thing worked well for the most part. People were much less likely to put in food containers that hadn't been thoroughly cleaned, which has been an issue in the past. I didn't have to sort through anything for once, which was really nice. There was some food left (some Diet Coke, an unopened half gallon of skim milk, which I don't drink, two containers of yogurt that I had for breakfast on Monday, and an apple), but not too bad. I can use all but the skim, but really this works best when everyone remembers to take what they brought. It's worse when there are more people, or people hurrying out the door.

The other thing that was slightly different was the time of year. We've typically done the retreat sometime in October, but I think that now that there are a couple of other retreats going on (GameStorm, EGG, Salishan) during the year, that once for wargaming in spring and once for Euros in the early fall (in this case, late summer) worked well. Temperatures were a little high (into the mid 80's) but not for long enough to be a problem, and in general the temperature was very pleasant. Considering it was supposed to be approaching 100 degrees in Portland, I was very happy. My work with the Balladeers at the MAC (a glee club I direct) forced this early date, but I'm not unhappy about it at all and would consider a similar date next year (and almost certainly will).

In the end, though, Sunriver is about the community we've built up with Rip City Gamers. We all love games, and it's clear it's an important element in our collective sanity, but we also get along very well as a group. You have to to share a home for more than a night without conflict, and we don't run into conflict at all as far as I can tell. My hosting duties are mostly very light, usually someone letting me know we're out of toilet paper somewhere. The cost is minimal for pretty much everyone, and the hardest part is closing the house up but Alex and I got it done pretty quickly. Aside from having to do dishes by hand, it went as smoothly as I could have hoped.

And the company, as always, was excellent. I am truly blessed to have such a great group of good friends to game with, and I thank them for making every Sunriver truly memorable and a special time.

Sunriver Euro Retreat 2011, Day 4

2011-09-19T10:47:00.000-07:00

So we came to the final morning on Sunday. This was a strange day in many respects - the first "real" day of the NFL season (and with me participating in a pick'em pool with family and friends, so perhaps more involved in the overall results than normal), as well as the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. I managed to avoid most mention of 9/11 through the day, and was happy for it - I feel that a day like this needs to be commemorated with reflection and thought rather than with flags everywhere. This is not a day we should be proud of, in no small part because of our overreactions and missteps in the name of security over liberty that my country took in the aftermath and are still to this day taking, the very thing we were purporting to be protecting. It's not the 4th of July, yet there were enough flags around that you might get confused about what month it was. In any event, there was gaming and good company, and that seemed like a good way to mark the day - that life goes on regardless of what some will do to make a point in the name of an invisible being.

I woke up a little late, took a shower, came out to the main room, and found that everyone was waiting for me to play Power Grid on the Korea map. So away we went...

Power Grid: Korea -

The big thing with the Korean map is that there are two markets, and you can only buy from one. They have different schedules of resources over the course of the game, and different schedules (so that there are two oil for 5 Electro in the south, but only one oil for 5 Electro in the north, for example).

The last time I played this map was at Salishan with Rita, Lorna, and some other people who now escape me. The hallmark of that game was having the big plants come out early and the little plants sitting around for the second half of the game bringing the pace to a near halt and taking forever to get to Step 3. You'll never guess how this game went?

I started out strong, placing my initial plants late (which I'm coming to realize is usually a better move than grabbing the early cheaply connected plants), especially if you can carve out your very own corner of the map. Chuck and I were the only people really competing for territory south of Seoul, and there's lots of room to work with, but I made an initial foray north that put me in really good position. I then got a 4 production plant that gave me an income advantage early as well. While I was in first place in terms of cities (and therefore last in terms of buying resources or placing new cities), I was feeling very good in terms of being able to get to 14 cities and powering the most plants.

And then I made my mistake. I didn't realize what a mistake it was at the time, but it was big.

There was one 6 output plant (3 coal) in the current markets group, and a 6 output (3 oil) plant in the futures market waiting to take it's place. I put the coal plant up, and Greg took it for 40. He later told me he'd have let me have it for 41. My thinking at the time was that the next plant into the current market would be the oil plant, as it was only one bigger.

It didn't come out for something like six turns. Instead, we got a parade of 2 and 3 output plants, which would have, at best, given me a tiny nudge up. The bummer was that at this point, even me going to 14 cities would have let Greg power more cities than I could, so I held off. If I was playing for position, it would have been much better for me to have settled for second. Instead, I kept hoping a decent plant would show up, as I could outbid nearly everyone (I ended with over 250 Electro in hand).

Of course, no decent plant showed up. We got to Step 3 after a long and painful endgame, and Greg got to 14 cities and won handily. Exactly what happened in that long ago game at Salishan, although that was BGE (Before Greg Era).

And, of course, since I was drawing for plants in the third position, I was unable to improve my position better than to 9 powered cities, which was enough for me to take, wait for it, last place.

I have never seen such a turn of fortune in a game of Power Grid as that. To have played what was, for most people, an almost perfect game (at one point I got four Step 2 cities for 77 Electro, a bargain by any stretch) and then have it all crumble away over a six turn stretch with almost no way to prevent it was very painful. There is a lesson here - pay attention to what plants are available. Since we got to Step 3 before any plants with an output greater than 3 showed up, that meant they were all either on the table, blown up, or had been passed over.

To have this happen on the exact same map was just freaky.

Thank goodness the company was good. ;-)

At this point, everyone but myself and Alex headed for home. Which left the two of us to play...

Warhammer: Invasion -

I am not a big fan of CCGs - as someone on the 'Geek put it, the novelty of new cards makes up for shallow play depth, and I think that's correct. I've never really gotten the hang of how to construct a deck that will be competitive, or really even how I'm supposed to play it. It seems like most of the time you are waiting for a good card combo, and whoever gets it first will win.

Well, I suck at LCGs as well. Even when you aren't deckbuilding.

That said, I've invested in W:I to a fair degree. Yeah, it's GW, a company I don't have much love for, at least in terms of the IP owner. I much prefer the LCG model, although FFG's initial release of their expansion decks was done to encourage serious players to purchase three copies, something I did not do. As such, I have gotten through the first three expansion cycles and the first three boxed expansions, and I think I will be stopping there. There's plenty to keep me entertained with that many cards, to be honest.

The game is a bit different from most CCGs, where you are trying to kill a specific card that represents your character (in the WoW CCG) or other critical item (like your ship in 7th Sea CCG). Amazingly, I can't speak for Magic, which I have never played. Really. Instead, you are trying to inflict damage on three different districts in the opposing player's capital. If you inflict 8 hits (plus any extras you need to cover developments in that district) the district is considered to be burning, and once two districts are burning you win. Of course, you have to fight your way through various enemy units to get there, plus the usual action cards.

There are a couple of things that make this game interesting for me. First is that you have six factions available to play, three of them (Orcs, Chaos, and Dark Elves) on the "Destruction" side and three (Dwarves, High Elves, and Humans) on the "Order" side. You can't fight against someone on your side, of course. I think this is a little like the LCG based on A Game Of Thrones, as there are multiple factions as well. The other differentiator for me is the inclusion of neutral cards that anyone can use, although some are limited to one side or the other. For example, the first expansion cycle includes a lot of Skaven cards that can only be used by the Destruction player, with a handful of Witch Hunter cards that can be used by the Order player. This idea has been expanded so that the Destruction "neutral" cards include Undead, while the Order side can draw from Lizardmen as well as most recently Wood Elves.

While you are encouraged to play a single faction (because playing cards gets cheaper as you have more cards from that faction on your play area), it's definitely possible to build multi-faction decks that have both "formal" factions as well as the "neutral" factions. I don't really feel comfortable enough with the decks to do that just yet, and in fact I believe I have yet to win a game no matter which faction I'm playing (so far Dwarves, High Elves, and Chaos). Apparently I suck at these games too.

In the games Alex and I played, we tried something a little different. I am interested in the idea of a game where you play once, then add in the first set of expansion cards from a given cycle, build your deck to 40, add in random neutral cards (you can choose faction-specific neutrals with your normal build), and then play again. Repeat using the next expansion deck. We were sticking with single factions for our purposes, and I think that was smart as I've barely played and Alex had not played at all. Since the Assault on Uluthan box set expands the two Elven factions to a point where they are playable on their own (they are not a full faction in the core set), we used all of those cards as well, so our first game was with the core decks, the faction cards from Assault, plus enough of the Core/Assault neutrals to get us to 60 cards as by then we were at about 45-47 cards in our faction decks. Neutral cards were dealt randomly. Alex took the Dwarves, and I took Chaos, which I was excited about seeing as I hadn't played them and had wanted to.

In the first game, I started strong, setting fire to one of Alex's districts (the Battlefield) quickly. My strategy was to 1) get cheap cards out to make the better cards even cheaper, and 2) corrupt Alex's units as much as possible. Corruption prevents units from attacking or defending, as well as providing some other benefits based on card text, but the owner can "uncorrupt" them one at a time, one per turn so it's better if you can get multiple units corrupted at once. Sadly, Alex went mostly for buildings (Support cards) to increase his card draws and resources early, and that seemed to be a good strategy. By halfway into the game, the point where I became completely ineffective, he was drawing close to 10 resources a turn and drawing six cards. While it's true that you lose if your deck runs out (and I've lost that way), at the same time it's hard to stop an enemy who can deploy six cards a turn and then attack you with them when you are drawing three and getting five resources, about the price of a very good unit.

And so, Alex won the first game.

We pulled out the first expansion pack from the Skaven cycle (I forget the formal name), and it was clear to me that the Skaven were going to be of no help early, having few cards and most of them required other Skaven cards. I did go for the new Chaos cards, and trimmed my faction deck to 40 so that we could play with 50 cards decks instead of 60.

It didn't help.

In fact, the arc of the game was nearly identical, although I felt I did much worse in some regards. I was able to build up some good card draws early, but not so much resources. I did take out Alex's Quest district (which does not affect cards in the area or his draws) but once again stalled out and was unable to get cards that were going to help me and he beat me even more quickly, if that was possible.

There is a draft variant that uses all the factions on your side that I may try in the future, plus some variant cards that you can add in to make the draft even more of a metagame, but that doesn't seem like it would work so well with the expansions and making it feel like a campaign game, which was what I was looking for. I guess you'd get to know the decks pretty well that way, though.

Don't get me wrong, I like this game. I like having a large number of cards to work with but still finite, and I also like the variety in ways to play the game. It's relatively quick, the component values are high, and at this point I have a ton of replayability in the box.

I'm just really terrible at this game. And, of course, it's two-player, so harder for me to get up games when most of my two-player gaming involves wargames rather than LCGs or Euros. Perhaps I need to focus on building up my production elements before going after my opponent's districts, although I did not feel like I had much in the way of choice if I wanted to take advantage of the card text, which often requires you to place cards in certain areas to get the effect, or sometimes you have no choice in the matter at all. And that is why I usually don't like CCGs, because you need to play repeatedly to get a normal statistical curve in terms of results with evenly matched players. It wasn't a faction mismatch - Chaos and the Dwarves are natural enemies, as are Orcs and Humans, and Dark and High Elves.

The biggest problem with this game is that so many cards have had their text altered, and I don't want to have to put stickers on the cards so that I don't need to constantly address the FAQ to make sure there isn't errata present. I would also like to get an updated version of the Corruption cycle (the first expansion cycle) that has three of each card, like the later cycles, but I don't know that will ever happen (Corruption had 40 cards per pack at $10, new ones are 60 cards for $15). I guess that really it's no more than a $5 difference per expansion, so $30 total. Of course, I don't need to even play with that pack, and the core sets have the same issue. Since I'm not planning to play seriously, I guess it's not an issue, although apparently there are a lot of Skaven cards that require multiple copies to be effective.

And, of course, I'm out of room for cards in the box as I premium sleeve all of them. Yeah, I've got more money than sense, something some members of Rip City Gamers have known for years.

At that point, I was getting ready to go out and have yummy Thai food with Ken and Alex was getting ready to go home. Most of the house had been closed up - beds made, towels washed, etc, and all I needed to do was to put the dishes away and do one last load of towels the next morning before I headed home as well.

My wrap-up is coming in the next post.

Sunriver Euro Retreat 2011, Day 3

2011-09-18T10:51:00.000-07:00

Day 3 dawned much as Day 2 had, with me surviving far too much alcohol the day before in pretty good form. Don't worry, by Tuesday all of that imbibing had caught up with me, so much so that this past week I have consumed exactly three drinks total in a full week, and all of them in social settings. I even avoided ordering a beer at the Arts Institute graduation ceremony I attended, perhaps the first one I've been to that included a no host bar. Very strange to see so many people lifting beers to their fellow students during graduation.

But I digress.

Saturday saw the largest number of games for me, but still a fairly small number in some respects considering how short some of these games are.

Merchants & Marauders -

I'm not fond of games with Wild West themes, and pirates are actually also fairly far down the list in terms of my preferred milieux, but there's something appealing about actually playing a pirate-themed game. That the games never really come close to being as satisfying as I'd like is a bit of a bummer, but that's true of so many games. Still, M&M has so many very cool bits and so much theme, I was hopeful it would make for a good game. Jury's still out there, sadly.

M&M is unusual in that you aren't locked down into being a pirate, and in fact with some of the captains you draw you are actively encouraged to be a merchant. That was the case for both MattG and I, while Alex took the piratical route. Sort of. I think we ended up raiding exactly one merchant the entire game, and Alex spent most of his time avoiding the Spanish largely because the Spanish spent the entire game at war with the English and Alex was English. We did end up with five NPC ships on the board, my French ships being the exception.

To make matters worse, I started near a good mission and drew lots of Goods cards that were in demand at nearby ports. I also had the captain that lets you ignore storms, and we had storms about every two and a half turns, including the first two. That really hobbled my competition and I went to town. I think my opponents should have immediately gone after me once it was clear I had a head start, but it was a first game for Alex and Matt, and my second game (first was two-player with similar results for the pirate player). I ended up getting Glory all over the place with Rumors and Missions and high-yield trades, plus I successfully discovered Treasure Island and headed for home.

And it was in my home waters of Tobago that we ended up experiencing the combat system in depth when both of my opponents finally came after me and my huge sack of nuggets. Wait, that came out wrong. My vast treasure. Better. Alex was driven off with minimal damage to my ship, but Matt actually managed to board me. Sadly, I'd shot up his crew pretty badly and they were repelled, with me getting even more gold. Kind of an anti-climactic ending, and that kind of sums up my feelings about the game.

Understand, I like it. I see tremendous promise in it. But I don't think the game "works" until you have players who know it well enough to see when another player is in need of a beatdown, especially before they grab that larger-scale ship that's so much harder to take on, which I did fairly early on. As such, being a relatively long game, it's hard to drum up enthusiasm for a game that we'll need to play a few times to get in a group that has far too many game choices already. Which suggests that yes, there is a point where you can have too many games.

By now, Chuck had arrived and the 18XX game was still in full swing (as it was for pretty much the entire day), so it was time to brave the depths of space after having braved the depths of Havana's brothels...

Death Angel - Space Hulk Card Game -

Boy, if you think M&M has garnered mixed reviews, you should see DA. People love it the first time, then start to hate it later because it's so brutal - one bad die roll and you're out half of your team, and one more and you're sitting on the sidelines. I can empathize, but then the game is supposed to be pretty short and sweet and much more of an experiential ride than a truly competitive game. No question the game is dripping with theme, not to mention gore dangling from the claws of the Genestealers as they smacked us around badly.

I think part of the problem was that we were trying to maintain the theme by not discussing who would shoot when, as you can't attack in two consecutive turns (you really can't do anything consecutively in this game), and so there was little fire coordination. The rules state that you are supposed to play your action card secretly, and we extrapolated this to mean we also chose them secretly. That definitely makes it harder to win with more than three people playing, as you only get a single team.

The early game went well, except we weren't taking advantage of the door at the first location and we had drawn more than half of our spawn cards as major spawns, so there were areas with more than five Genestealers, including the door. In the second location, no door at all. We didn't make it past the second location. [Note: If you play Activate actions at the door, you will reduce the number of Genestealers that follow you to the next location. Somehow this didn't register with people when I explained it along with the rules, but I'm pretty sure it's stuck since then. I was trying to move up near the door, but we moved too quickly because so many blips turned into GS's so quickly.]

I actually like the game, and think it would be a good filler, which was it's role for this particular game. Alex went on and played it solitaire twice, beating it handily both times. I also think we did not have an optimal set of four teams, drawing them essentially randomly.

At this point, MattG and Alex took a break and Chuck and I pulled out the game that I was perhaps most keen to play during the weekend...

A Few Acres Of Snow -

Sadly, it was also the biggest disappointment by far for me. Here I was expecting a wargame with a deck-building component, which was really much more of a hand-management component because the card set is always the same. Chuck suggested that a good start for the British was to deny the French the independent Settlers cards, which I did, but he pasted me anyway by placing all of his houses. There was one siege that failed, started on Chuck's part, and aside from that there was almost no conflict at all other than a single raid. I did not understand that I could invade Nova Scotia, or I definitely would have done so early.

I chalk most of this up to a combination of not fully understanding an effective strategy and some unfortunate card combinations (like waiting the entire hand for the card with the Cart on it to advance further south and prevent Chuck from filling in all of the Great Lakes region so quickly), but in the end the whole thing felt so "meh" that I've gone so far as to cancel my preorder with the local store. While I am a huge fan of Steam and Age of Industry, to be honest pretty much every Wallace game that's come out recently (except London, which seems to be a game most devotees don't like) has fallen very flat for me. Like Knizia, I think Wallace's best days are behind him and he's taken to simply putting out games as a moneymaking operation. His forays into serious rules expansions (Steam Barons) was an utter disaster, with six people unable to see how you could do much better than where you started at, and while I hear Gettysburg is supposed to have learned a lot from Waterloo, the latter was another game that I looked at and simply didn't understand what all the fuss was about.

It's not that I dislike the game, it's just that absolutely nothing about it grabbed me, and I loved Wilderness War. The period is very interesting to me, especially at the strategic level. I felt absolutely none of the era at all, it was dry to the point of desiccation, and by all appearances the game was going to devolve into a small set of strategies where if one player did this, the other would respond by doing that, and the vagaries of the deck (even with reserves) would determine the winner. I'm sure I'm doing the game a disservice, but quite honestly if a game isn't going to grab me at all on the first play, it's not going to get much in the way of a second chance. Biggest disappointment for the weekend by a mile.

By now we were getting ready to go out for dinner, but there was time for a quick game of San Juan with Chuck, MattR, and Greg.

San Juan w/ Treasure Box Expansions -

For a period of about 18 months, San Juan was our "summoning" game, the one we'd play at the start of the evening while waiting for the tardy players to arrive. We could get through a game in about 10-15 minutes, and it was always interesting. Then we tired of it (or people started showing up promptly) and it went back on the shelf. When Greg suggested trying it with the Alea Treasure Box expansions, I was happy to see what changes it brought.

As it turned out, the game pretty much plays the same, but I think we would have been better served playing part of the expansion instead of all of the parts. The game was fun, but it lacked the elegance of the original. I especially didn't like the extra occupation cards that seemed to favor the person who got to pick an occupation right after they came out.

I ended up going for a Guild Hall strategy that worked to a point, but made the mistake of going for screwage instead of building up my own engine early with a Guard House that limited everyone to six cards per turn. I don't know that it helped that much, although there was much grumbling. I scored 12 points with the Guild Hall, but not nearly enough to win with whoever won.

Somehow, I'm rather proud of the fact that I had to remember that I'd won Merchants & Marauders, and could barely remember who won even a couple of the other games I played. Sunriver is never about the winning or losing, it's almost always about who you play with, just like life in general. And no question that the company was fantastic as always.

After a delicious dinner and drinks at Hola!, a Mexican/Peruvian place that has taken over the Trout House's old space on the Deschutes River, we returned for the final gaming of the evening, which meant that Alex was going to take us through a game of Dungeon World, an indie RPG.

Dungeon World -

I love RPGs, but I mostly love GMing over being a player because I have to think on my feet and come up with a lot of characterizations for NPCs. This time, Alex was the GM (I GMed his first RPG experience at the age of five in Sunriver, so very apropos) taking us through a very cool system that encourages roleplay directly, which I liked quite a bit. This was a fairly simple dungeon with relatively few encounters but all were meaty and entertaining. My character was a hot female elf wizard with a bit of a checkered past and some real problems with authority and Muslims. As you can see, I veered wildly from reality in some respects (problems with Muslims, being hot, being female, being an elf, being a wizard, having a checkered past) and sticking with my own personality in others (problems with authority). Since I rarely play as a character, I decided to go, in the words of Tropic Thunder, "full retard," meaning that I embraced my character fully. The Scotch didn't hurt either.

Many thanks to Alex for GMing the group, which was deliciously dysfunctional in a roleplaying sense, and to the other players for running with each other's dramatic choices. It was good fun.

At that point, we were nearly done with the weekend, but one more night of rest before the denouement...

Sunriver Euro Retreat 2011, Day 2

2011-09-18T10:03:00.000-07:00

For as much as I'd drunk the previous day, I was expecting to wake up feeling like a 2 or a 3, but thanks to a very dry climate I'd been woken up about every 90 minutes during the night by a very dry mouth, so I had consumed massive quantities of water during the night and woke up actually feeling pretty damned good. Time to jump into gaming!

Through the Ages -

First up was Through the Ages with MattR and Alex. To be honest, what other people played was a bit of a blur to me, so I won't try to capture their experiences here other than to say that I was surprised to see a dated 18xx game that apparently included a Dragon and looked like it was played on a fantasy archipelago, only to realize later that it was Corsica and Sardina, the Dragon was some sort of overarching development company, and it was historical. So best not to trust my impressions of what was going on elsewhere.

I love TtA. It has really interesting situations throughout and every game is going to feel differently. However, I suck at it, mostly because I hardly ever play - this was my first play in what must have been 18 months, maybe more like 28. Hopefully, the iDevice version coming out later this year (oh please oh please) should help me get some chops in this game, much as it has done for my Ascension game strategies.

This game was no exception. I completely forgot about wonders going away if you hadn't built them in the third epoch (if they were Age I wonders) and lost an almost completed St. Pete's. I also thought that a tech I'd bought helped defray the costs of only new buildings, but it worked for upgrades as well and I spent more resources than was necessary over the game, perhaps 12-15, which is crippling. I was always third in the military game as well, with a few short-term exceptions. I think I got about five points in the endgame when I simply stopped receiving green military cards entirely (up until them, almost all of my culture points had been from playing green cards, so I can't complain too much).

Alex pretty much lapped us, unfortunately. When I play it again in 18 or 28 months, though, I will be ready! Assuming the iDevice version doesn't come out in 17-27 months.

Ascending Empires, Take 2 -

I have already expressed my deep and abiding love for this game in my recount of our three-player game. Let me just say that, with Alex added in going for the Universe's Biggest Navy (he actually built a battleship), it was even more fun, if a bit wackier. I still stand by my statement that this is as close as you get to real time play in an ordered manner, although it was very sad to see that everything had warped to an even greater degree by the time we played our second game (third game for the group).

By now it was dinnertime, and I was involved with preparing lasagna and salad for the troops, which I'm happy to say were completely consumed.

No Retreat, GMT Edition -

After dinner, we had planned to play Battlestar Galactica, and I had hoped to play the Exodus expansion. However, I got such conflicting reports of which elements to use that I recommended we stick with the vanilla edition. However, by this time Ken had joined us and he had sat out enough games (he was in and out all weekend as he had a lot of work-related activities), so he and I pulled out the new edition of No Retreat! originally published by VPG and later in a much more polished edition by GMT in the last month or so. This is a light complexity East Front wargame with a very low unit count but with enough meat to make it a very interesting game. Of particular interest is that you get event cards during your turn and can spend them for various things like replacements, counterblows (essentially spoiling attacks), or for the event printed on your side of the card, assuming the right side has the initiative (determined by what turn it is).

I took the Germans and in the four turns we played (there are about 28) we nailed down a lot of the chrome in the game, such as where reinforcements and replacements can go, compared to detraining units. This corresponded to just before the winter got really bad for the Germans, and I felt I'd come at the very least fairly close to a historical result - could have gotten into the Crimea, also a little closer to Moscow, but otherwise I was feeling pretty good considering I didn't kill a single unit in my initial attack. Considering I can have four attacks at most, that's not terrible, but it did allow Ken to use his cards for things other than replacements. All in all, it was good to learn the game a little better, and I'm looking forward to giving this a try again soon. I'm already slotted to play at BottosCon in early November...

By 10:30pm, i was a toasty pumpkin and ready for bed. I guess I was fortunate not to play BStarG, as the humans coasted through the entire game with hardly any mishaps, even with Mike being a Cylon Admiral for the first half of the game. I guess even the great ones are going to have their weak days, but no question I dodged a bullet for what was looking like the biggest disappointment of the weekend for most.

Sunriver Euro Retreat 2011 - Day 1

2011-09-17T10:40:00.000-07:00

Sorry to be so late with this. It's very hard for me to get an entry in at the actual event, seeing as I'm either gaming or inebriated. OK, sometimes I'm eating or showering. Life since I've returned last Monday has been kind of crazy, and I haven't even unpacked the games I took!

Anyway, here's Day 1, Thursday:

Lord of the Rings Living Card Game (LotR) -

I arrived around 12:15pm on Thursday, after a few people made the request that we start a little earlier and everyone was leaving pretty early on Sunday. After getting the car unpacked, I started checking out the house, spending some time figuring out what was wrong with the stereo receiver (bad speakers in the nook), updating the system software on the PS3, reseting the password again so that people could see Netflix movies (I have no idea how this got screwed up in two months, but that's what happens when you have a vacation home many people use), stuff like that. Around 4pm, Greg and MattG showed up, after a scenic trip through Lebanon, which by my calculations took them about 2 hours out of their way. Water under the bridge, time to game!

First up was LotR, which Greg had not played, I'd played a handful of times, and MattG had played many times. Matt had some decks set up, and chose the Hunt for Gollum quest. This first expansion pack has gotten some mixed reviews, with people being much more excited about the follow on expansions. That said, we considered that a good quest for Greg's first game.

It was a total walkthrough. I think I took four damage total the entire game, and that was on Gloin so I was trying to take damage. Part of the problem is that the encounter deck is primarily locations rather than enemies to fight, so we imply smacked them around and moved on. For our last quest phase, we generated 25 points on our side. Even the Clue cards came up quickly.

I have heard that the various quests are good with various numbers of players, and that certainly seems to be true. That said, I like the game quite a bit, and will probably pull it out more often to get in some good deck-building time for solo play (usually with two decks). I'm a terrible deck-builder when you do it in advance, so this will give me some chances to build this skill, although I eschew CCGs at this point, preferring the LCG concept by quite a bit, although my only other LCG is Warhammer: Invasion, which I'm not sure works as well.

Regardless, it was fun to play a new quest and get surprised by what we ran into, even if it was just another roadside attraction and tourist trap.

After finishing, Matt spent a little time deck building while Greg and I turned on the first NFL game of the season and we all enjoyed delicious beer and some of the worst delivery pizza I have ever had. The delivery person should have been tipping me.

Ascending Empires -

This game has gotten a lot of buzz. It's kind of a 4X game (Explore, Exploit, Expand, Excommunicate? - Not really sure what the four X's actually are but I know how the games go), but has a physical flicking component. Turns are very short, taking something like 5 seconds if you know what you're going to do, although movement usually takes more like a minute if you actually flick something. The game is relatively luck-free, with the exception of a semi-random planet distribution (you don't know what planets contain what resources until you land or scan them), and of course the vagaries of the puzzle board which warped almost immediately. I'll be getting plexi, washers, and door bumpers soon to fix that problem, although there's something kind of entertaining about trying to get over those seams.

The result is, in my opinion anyway, a really fast and fun game that encourages screwage and planning and even a certain amount of bluffing. One player felt that it was nothing new, but I am unaware of any table top 4X game that feels like this at all. It's almost simultaneous play and one bad decision can put you out of contention, as you will see below.

Our first game was with Greg and MattG, and none of us had played. The rules are pretty straightforward, although there is a fairly extensive FAQ out there already (and you'll want it - there are few rules for what happens when the ships get turned on their sides or roll or other wackiness). Since you get points for three things during the game, and the game ends when you run out of the point pool, similar to Race for the Galaxy, you are encouraged to do those things, which include advancing your tech trees, removing troops from a planet (mining), and beating your enemies' ships by outnumbering them within "range" as measured by a little piece of cardboard. The tech tree is particularly useful, as it allows you to get various improvements to your abilities, such as more troops placed at a time, longer range attacks, and gaining more troops and ships to your pool, so you really can't skip it. You also get points for wiping out items (anything that is a player color) from the surface of a planet by getting enough ships in orbit and wiping out the owning player's ships also in orbit.

However, you also get points for having colonies and cities, and cities also grant more troops and/or ships, so you want to be doing that too. And having occupied planets. And having cities in more than two quadrants. You don't get these until game end, however, so they are longer term goals.

By the way, hitting another ship with your ship is called "ramming" and it results in both ships returning to the players' supplies. At higher tech levels, you can get VP for being rammed, or for ramming, but usually it's a bad thing unless you gain more by removing the opponent's ship than you do losing your own ship (which usually costs two half-turns, hence a single cycle, not to mention getting it back into position).

In our game, I was focused on long term points, getting cities in all four quadrants and then protecting them as this is worth a total of 18 points (four for the occupied planets, eight for the cities at 2 points each, and six points for having them in four quadrants). Matt, on the other hand, was ship rich and looking to wipe out one of my planet's items, including a city, and he had the ships in position to do so. However, as I pointed out to him, he wanted to be careful not to ram my ship in orbit. And, of course, he did that very thing and I won the game on an errant flick.

Without question this was my favorite new game of the weekend, perhaps my favorite game overall. There are without question component issues - the board is going to warp, even in a very dry environment like Sunriver, even putting the tiles back in the plastic bag and sealing it. Even the player boards were warping. Frankly, the game needs a good quality particle board map, much like Carabande has, but that would add something like $40 to the retail price. Instead, I will be buying a small sheet of plexi to go over it, and affixing washers and bumpers to the planets so they won't move on top of the plexi. As I said, though, there is some charm to having a less than smooth path to the next tile. Alternately, I may consider having a particle board built and drilled and applying a sheet to make it look identical. I would be surprised if at least one enterprising soul out there didn't do this. Fortunately, the game is, IMHO, well worth the extra cost.

Stichlen -

Last year we played a 7 or 8 player game of this the first night everyone was there, and we had a really entertaining time, especially the part where my wine (in a stemless glass, no less) ended up in the box lid with the cards we weren't using. Sadly, KC's copy. I was able to replace it and buy my own, and of course much was made of various alcoholic liquids getting into said box lid. Fortunately, the box lid survived this year unscathed.

I should mention that I brought a rather good bottle of Scotch (at least I liked it) and invited others to do the same, although it ended up being more "whiskey" (or in MattR's case, "whisky" as that's how bourbon distillers spell it) with the Irish and Bourbon varieties being represented as well. I have not been a Scotch drinker in the past, but I found the Ardmore label that I bought on a whim to be quite excellent, although I'm sure my compatriots all had their favorites.

The end result, of course, was that most of us were slightly drunk the entire weekend. Worked for me.

By now, Mike, Alex, and MattR had arrived (it was about 9 or 10pm at this point) and we were just picking up Ascending Empires, so nice timing.

In this particular game of Sticheln, Matt G had not played before, and it took him a hand or two to figure things out, but he did just fine in the end. I, however, had a massive brain fart in the third hand where I completely disassociated my pain color with what I was playing, and thought I was taking a mild chance when in fact I was setting myself up for disaster. The end result was that I was in last place for the entire game by quite a margin, although the game only lasted four hands as it was the slowest Sticheln game ever. Fun, but slow.

After four hands, we were all a little tired and I at least headed to bed. I know that Alex and Greg did some sort of draft variant for 2-player Race for the Galaxy, but I don't know much about it other than that.

Day 2 coming up soon!

RAV4 Update

2011-09-17T09:55:00.000-07:00

Some long time readers may remember that my wife's RAV4 had some issues with a "harsh shift condition" that her mechanics thought required a multi-thousand dollar transmission replacement. Hoping to avoid such a financial hit, I did some research and found evidence that the problem was in the ECM, the computer up against the firewall behind the glove box that controls the drive system. A bunch of Serbians in Brooklyn were selling an update where they would replace the capacitors in the ECM (of very low quality, subjected to heat through the firewall, and thus not stabilizing the control voltages for the drivetrain). I sent it off, they fixed it, and the car has run fine ever since. Her mechanic has been strangely silent on the issue, even though I gave them business by having them remove and reinstall the ECM and flush the transmission fluid to get rid of any metal shavings caused by the harsh shift.

Today, friends, I received a notice of a class action suit where Toyota has agreed to reimburse people for any costs associated with repair of this problem. I'm not sure they will cover the transmission fluid flushing, and there is some chance they won't cover the Serbians (about a $300 cost to me, the mechanic cost another $200 or so) but even if they pay for nothing I am feeling even more vindicated.

You have to understand that while I understand how a car works at a very basic level, and I have changed my own oil and filter successfully on more than one occasion (though not for years, it's a freakin' mess), I do not consider myself a "car guy" by any stretch of the imagination and have no idea what to look for when buying a car. To have figured this out and been right where the mechanics were wrong is something I'm enjoying quite a bit. To not even worry if I get reimbursed is even better, as I know people who spent more like $1500, and have seen people who spent nearly $8000 getting this problem fixed.

If you did not receive a notice in the mail, check out www.rav4ecmsettlement.com.

Wargames As Educational Component

2011-08-26T11:04:00.000-07:00

There's no question for me that the most compelling iPad app for me (besides GoodReader for rules PDFs and Netflix for, well, Netflix) recently has been Ascension, the excellent implementation of Justin Gary's excellent deckbuilding game. What has been a little surprising for me is how effectively I think that this game could be included in a class on critical thinking, probably at the early secondary school level (in the US, this is right about the time the kids are 12-13 years old). I'll write more on that later, but for now I'll limit my comments as to how that's gotten me thinking about a lot of things educational, one of them being wargames.

Wargamers like to think that they learn a lot about history from playing these games, but I think that's not quite accurate. I've seen more than one posting online from people who state that the game itself isn't going to give you nearly enough information about a conflict so that you have any greater idea of what caused it, what went on off the battlefield, or what factors not present in the game led to the historical outcome. For anything dating before the 19th Century, getting an accurate and unbiased account of the action is problematic, and anything prior to the 18th Century is largely guesswork (these dates are intended to be very general). I met a man from Turkey once who told me that the problem with getting good information about that country's statistics from the Great War are not due to poor recordkeeping but rather because there is too *much* information poorly organized. Which sounds like good recording and poor keeping, but there you go.

In other words, there is a lot going on that isn't on the board. Considering the amount of information and research about the Order of Battle (OoB) that goes into a game to make it historically correct, that's pretty amazing. Certainly the various mechanisms can be enlightening (usually at the tactical level - see Fields of Fire for an excellent primer on the challenges of getting a group of people to perform acts that go directly against their sense of self-preservation), but in the end there isn't much that you learn about combat itself from rolling dice or moving cardboard squares.

It's arguable that the point of the game, aside from recreation, is to collect research on the OoB, the area, the situation, and the design process, and put it into a form that allows accessibility. I've never been a gear head when it comes to military matters - I can't tell you the variants of the US Sherman tank (although I *could* go to Patton's Best and get some sense of the variants), so the OoB has never really interested me. Whether a particular MG battalion actually saw action in the Caucasus in 1942 is not why I play games.

As for the situation, that is much better explained through textual description, which is often included in the Designer's Notes. These may also, along with the Developer's Notes, give some insight into wargame design, which I *do* find interesting, but at the same time I think few wargamers are in the hobby because they are interested in design and the challenges it brings, which are very different from the historical nature of the game. To be honest, that's why I became interested in wargames and how I became interested in military history, but I think for most people the initial appeal is exactly the opposite. In any case, even with a card driven game that includes more information about the surrounding geopolitical situation, or games with an economy (which tend to take the history even farther afield), you are given a very brief taste of the situation at best.

So what is left, aside from learning that the road network or lack thereof played a huge role in the Battle of the Bulge? In all cases, a student (whether in a formal setting or just learning for it's own sake) is not going to get more than a very introductory education from most wargames.

Most of the comments I've seen think that the main educational value of wargames is that the designer *has* done research and thus is able (hopefully) to provide a good bibliograpy that can point people to various points where they can actually learn something in something approaching "depth". If it's a particularly good bibliography, it will be annotated so that people understand the pluses and minuses of a given text, as well as it's scope. Anyone who has done serious research understands this (as well as understanding that on just about any topic there is more information out there than is possible to list, much less digest, much less assess).

While I obviously appreciate the bibliography, at the same time I think that wargames provide one thing that you cannot get from a text or the rules or anything else about the game - they can teach you about how geography and topography affect history, and how that affects the movement and combat effectiveness of armies (or soldiers, if we're at that level). In other words, it's about the maps and how the units move along them.

For those of us who haven't been in the military, or even for some who have, it's easy to think that here you have the German Army, there you have Paris, and a lot of open ground between them. What you don't understand is that in 1914, the infrastructure is such that there are challenges in even aspect of the operation and that they are largely dictated by the land itself. Watching the Schlieffen Plan evolve on a map of Western Europe is by far a stronger learning experience than looking at a few static maps in a textbook. You see just how tenuous the logistical "tail" running through the Ardennes forest was, how many things had to go right in order for the operation to be successful.

Nothing I've ever seen other than animation, and usually it's a cursory treatment, goes into great depth on how a battle evolves over the ground and how that ground affects that evolution. This, to my mind, is where the wargame is most valuable to the student of history. To this day I find myself looking for good maps in a military history book and finding them almost universally lacking. Even atlases of military history fall short in comparison. But having a wargame set up in a classroom that slowly demonstrates how the battle or war plays out over time gives the student a chance to absorb the conflict in a way that text and maps just can't.

What a good designer will also demonstrate is how hard it was to communicate with an advancing army when there was no effective wireless communications. When air recon was in it's infancy. When there were no mobile operations other than cavalry. How critical a logistical buildup was - amassing all of that artillery and, equally important, all of those shells. In WW2, also the fuel.

The problem is that few who play wargames want to be logistics officers. Moving a bunch of crates from point A to point B is for those "weenie" Eurogamers (and I am one of them), something less interesting than the action of running an offensive with tank spearheads with breakthroughs and encirclements and surrendering enemy troops. Most wargames do have supply rules and a nod to this issue, but in general it's largely abstracted out quite a bit. Those wargames that *do* try to create realistic situations are labeled as "scripted" or "chrome heavy" and largely dismissed. In the end, wargamers want tension and the ebb and flow of armies but beyond that it's about gaming more than simulating. Even with ASL, which arguably has the most detailed OoB in the hobby, the idea is about shooting shells more than can you get your soldiers to fire in the first place (I'm talking pre-breaking here, before anyone even *starts* shooting) and it certainly isn't about getting them to *stop* shooting, which is apparently also a bit of a trick in the real world.

There are wargames that do these other things, and they are typically well regarded. Those are important lessons to learn if you want to understand military history. However, for most of the hobby, it's about the game or about the OoB and the "real" learning comes from the bibliography and the dynamic elements of the game. Were I trying to teach history using wargames, that would be the role I'd see them playing in the classroom - how we got from point A to point B (literally) and why it went that way instead of over here. That's true at almost any level of warfare, from the tactical to the grand strategic. It's a valuable tool that you can't find anywhere else.

Goodbye To The Geek

2011-08-24T14:11:00.000-07:00

No, not *me*. Silly.

I'm not sure exactly why I seem to spark so much "controversy" over at BoardGame Geek, but I do. It seems I can't put anything up without someone taking offense or massively misreading my motives or making a stupid suggestion then complaining about me calling it "random" (instead of just "dumb") and then taking me to task for my word choice.

I think the thing that drove me the craziest was Mr. Skeletor, responding to a question about what I doing wrong in a Mansions of Madness scenario as the keeper, suggesting that it was just a case of me being a sore loser. This from the guy who, when he reached the same point I did with BGG, asking to have all of his postings and files removed. Hilariously, another poster on the same question was harsh enough that someone else mailed me privately to say that he was "just like that" and really not a bad guy. When other people feel they have to apologize for you (people that I am extremely unlikely to ever meet) I know that we're pretty far off the ranch.

And then there's the outright crazy people. Mr. Crazy Steel Wolves Guy, I'm talking to you. After the third private mail where he told me my motivations for every word I used in suggesting that the game was going to be a much more pleasant experience in VASSAL, I asked him not to contact me again, and he didn't.

I did, however, take a great deal of pride in being called a "Review Nazi" by a guy who didn't seem to understand that Castle Ravenloft is at it's heart a solitaire game and thus must have a balance of randomness (to keep it from being a puzzle) but still reward good play (to keep it from being a ride). He never did get the concept, but being told I was a Nazi for suggesting that his opinion was not as fully baked as he likes to think did give me quite a good laugh. He didn't get Godwin's Law, either.

I'm very sorry, but I am not interested in spending two paragraphs couching every possible point I make as a) valuing your opinion, b) giving my gaming resume to "allow" me to comment, c) valuing your opinion, d) reminding you that you are entitled to your opinion and no one can take it away from you. Oh, and valuing your opinion. That should all be implicit.

As an engineer who has spent some time in academia, it's clear to me that the rigors of debate and critical thinking are simply beyond the capacity for the majority of people involved in the site. That's a shame, as I think I've contributed some value. But when I point out that the GMT version of No Retreat includes a free download of the solitaire package from the VPG site and a way to use the cards without needing to actually cut them out, only to have someone suggest that you could just as easily pay for the "finished" kit (which, actually, you already have purchased) and then repeatedly complain that I called their suggestion "random" without a *single* word discussing why their idea is better, I know it's time for me to find another way to spend my alone time than continually unsubscribing from threads.

I'm also amazed as some of the reasoning that goes on. One guy said he thought that Quarriors deserved exceptional levels of hate (Qhate, as he put it) because (in a nutshell) he saw a lot of people playing and enjoying it. Really, how do you deal with morons like that? You can't argue with them. You can't even have a discussion with them. They. Don't. Make. Sense.

So I'm done posting. Which is a shame. I like posting. I'll probably do more of it here now, which is nice except for the occasional marketeer who puts up a link to their site (I take those down as soon as I hear about them). I'll still use the 'Geek for reference, but even a simple question turns into a shouting match and it's just not good for my hypertension.

So, to all of the wonderful people on the Geek who made my time there so pleasant, a hearty Spock You. May your children turn out to be miscreants, may you enjoy your small and angry little lives, may you enjoy couching every barb in "It sounds like you..." style writing rather than just saying "You're an idiot." Which I cannot say on the 'Geek because, you know, it might hurt someone's feelings.

Really, I don't know what I was expecting. It's the Internet. No crazy here.

So now, it's just reading the BGG news and seeing if someone has already been roundly criticized for asking a question about a game. To everyone who has been damned decent on the site and thanked me for my efforts (and there are a few), Thank You and You're Welcome. I really do like facilitating gaming and people's enjoyment of it, but the confrontational people have simply driven me away.

Unlike Mr. Skeletor, I will not be taking down every file or comment I ever posted. Maybe you'll find something interesting.

I will also continue to contribute to their fund drives. The site does play a useful role. The forums, however, are no longer part of the "fun" for me.

I'd also like to thank Octavian, the main admin, for his work. When I got flagged for telling someone they were an angry person (saying "you seem like an angry person - OK), he was great about firmly telling me the rules, which I understand, and also for saying that my particular transgression was about as mild as he sees. I stand by my theory that online forums are promoting passive-aggressive behavior, but I understand the need to draw a line somewhere. Matt, you do good work and I thank you again for your time and effort on the behalf of the community. I really don't see how you do it.

Now to see how long I can actually keep away...

Mark O. Hatfield, RIP

2011-08-08T20:58:00.000-07:00

I think that a lot of my worldview was set at a fairly young age. Traveling with my parents to visit my sister in the small Andean town of Popayan, Columbia, where her husband was doing post-grad work (or possibly grant work, I was only 9 at the time) in anthropology - getting to go to and meet people from both the barrio and the landowners was a gift I didn't appreciate for a very long time.

However, there was another event that I'd completely forgotten about until this very morning, when I opened up the paper and saw that perhaps the greatest statesperson Oregon has ever produced, Mark O. Hatfield, died. He was respected by politicians on both sides of the aisle, and had a reputation for being the cleanest politician in Washington.

When I was young, my family attended a small Presbyterian church. This was a pretty liberal church - not a lot of talk of Hell and damnation, not a lot of focus on getting punished for doing wrong, much more focus on just doing the right thing. I know that a few of you who know me personally are going to be amazed that I went to church at *all*, but it's true. Didn't stick much - by the time I was 13 or 14 I was doing my own passive resistance movement when it came to Sunday mornings by simply refusing to get out of bed. My mother finally gave up.

One Sunday we were fortunate enough to have Senator Hatfield give the sermon at our church. The subject of the sermon was one that literally changed my view of the world. Back in the late 60's and very early 70's, especially in my little corner of suburban Portland, things were pretty homogenous and stable, at least in terms of what the neighbors were aware of. I definitely believed in God at the time, and was under the impression that as the best and richest country in the world that America was definitely favored by God.

That wasn't the sermon Senator Hatfield gave us. He told us that we were *not* the new Israel, that we were *not* favored by God. We were a good country trying to do the right thing, but we were just as much the children of God as anyone else on the planet, no matter what their faith or worldview. Understand that I was probably about 11 years old, so to have an adult tell me that we were, in essence, just getting along like everyone else was a real shock in some ways, although it wasn't until much later that I really started to understand what a shift in my thinking that was. My parents were still perfect, remember, at that age. Teachers were always right. There were a few kids at school who acted out, but in general things were pretty much Leave It To Beaver in my neighborhood.

And there was nothing special about us except the fact that we were human.

Over the course of my life, I've tried to understand as many sides of an issue as I could. Recent experience has taught me that there are a lot of people, perhaps a majority of people, who are about as interested in that idea as of eating dirt. I trust my leaders so much as they earn that trust, which is increasingly smaller every year at most levels of government. I believe that if the world is good, it's because we make it good, not because some higher power's idea of good is at work. Most of all, I try very hard to avoid acting like a spoiled brat with an overdeveloped sense of entitlement when things aren't going the way I'd like them to. OK, I have my moments, but I like to think there are relatively few of them.

All of these things I can trace back to a lot of things, including some good role modeling by my parents and family and some very good friends growing up, but I can also trace my these things to one famous man speaking in my church and laying the foundations for responsible adulthood in my mind.

Senator Hatfield was not well the final years of his life, and he died in Bethesda, MD, far from his home. I think that's a shame for a man who left such an indelible stamp on the state he called home.

My thoughts are with the Hatfield family tonight, but Mark lived a good life, doing good things. He was a model that many if not all of our "statespeople" today could learn a lot from - work with your opponent, get to know them and their point of view, find compromises that achieve your goals as well as the goals of your opponents. We don't have to all join hands and sing Kum Ba Yah, but we also don't have to call each other vermin and Nazi with such gusto and with so little provocation.

Thank you, Senator Hatfield. You probably had no idea you had such an effect on a young boy sitting in that little church, and there's no question that what you said that day also had a big effect on me not being actively religious (and certainly not Christian by most people's standards, although I'm always astonished at how bigoted some Christians are against other people who wear the same label), which is probably not what the pastor at my church had in mind. That said, you made me a better person with more perspective, and I hope that you, sir, are in a better place. One where we can solve problems without the main idea being winning the next election or meeting this month's financial projections. We miss you.

Epic CC:P

2011-07-26T10:24:00.000-07:00

There's no question that I'm a fan of Chad Jensen's Combat Commander series, and no question that I think that while the Europe/Med games are excellent, the Pacific game refines the system to a point where it's hard to find fault. That's not to say that many don't like the "randomness" of having to draw certain types of cards to produce certain types of actions, and for those who want every possible weapon system available during the period there will always be some issues, but for the rest of us it's a hoot *and* a holler.

Matt R and I just finished up our two part game, the scenario Blind Man's Bluff (M5, I believe) from the recently released New Guinea battlepack. I had looked for a scenario with a little meat to it, meaning a decent number of units, something that wouldn't necessarily just entail an attacker and defender, and this one seemed to fit the bill nicely. It also featured CW forces, a side I hadn't seen a lot of in the games I've played. The game took two of our Fourth Monday sessions, with the first session actually taking place on a Third Monday because of vacations.

Here's the lowdown: My Indian units were pinned down on the Japanese side of the board at the base of a ridge, with a large and dangerous Japanese force shooting at them from the top of the ridge. Meanwhile, a relief force made up of ANZAC troops was massing on my side of the board, while a fairly large Japanese screening force was between me and relieving the Indians. In some ways, it's like two scenarios in one. I was in an Attack posture with four Orders per turn at Line quality, while Matt's Japanese were in Recon posture (so more cards but no ability to play Defensive cards and no bonus VP per time trigger) posture with three Orders per turn at Line quality. The Japanese had plenty of mortars of the Light and Medium kind, as well as a few LMGs, while my force had mostly LMGs and a single HMG (which is perhaps the least effective HMG in the game, at least in the Pacific). In general, the Japanese are better troops, being mostly Div A and all with boxed FP.

It's hard to root the Japanese out of a fixed position because they tend to be pretty good at Melee, and they have the advantage of being able to react to any Advances their opponents make into their hexes. They had a lot of good leaders, while mine were all pretty average. Making things more interesting was the ridge running the length of the map (longways, from my end to the Japanese end), with the main Japanese forces all positioned along the top. Fortunately, however, no caves. Those things suck if you aren't Japanese.

My plan was to flank the screening force on both sides to force Matt to have to divide up his force to both sides of the ridge, then come at him from three sides. My pinned force was going to just need to survive. I'll note that there are no points for exiting the map, and that there are no specific VP for saving the pinned force, you are just trying to kill the other side and take whatever VP you get for the secret objectives you each pull at game start. These ended up being fairly small (1VP for Obj5 and Obj2, which offset) and were made public through events fairly early in the game. I did get one last objective later in the game, but since it was secret right up to the end I'll do the same for you, dear reader.

Things started off slowly for the CW, and Matt put my forces under some withering firepower on the first evenings session. The result was that I lost my best leader almost immediately, then lost the one on my left flank shortly thereafter, due to melee (I think). With this many units, it is very hard to do anything without having leadership to make them efficient (imagine a six unit force that you want to move - it takes six Move cards to do without a leader!) I also began to see a lot of attrition with the pinned Indians, and they eventually lost half of their number by the end of that first session. Oh, and my HMG broke early. However, I was having some success on the right flank, and managed to get a leader, team with an LMG, and an ANZAC squad up onto the ridge into a foxhole. I also had a radio that could call in some arty, although it was not as high a caliber as I'd have liked.

Meanwhile, Matt had pulled a weaker leader back to Obj5 just to keep me honest, but he had a very strong leader in a forward position on the ridge. However, both of us were pretty banged up, especially the Japanese, with more than half of his units broken and/or suppressed. When we took the break, I was sitting on three Revive cards that would "fix" almost all of my units, but Matt had a 13 VP lead on me and with only two leaders (only one of which was useful) I was in some trouble.

We met again last night to finish the game, and in three hours we did so. That's right, this game took over six hours to play to completion, and I'll just mention that about 60% of our Time Triggers were caused by the decks running out. That tends to make for a long game, but we tend to play at a fairly casual pace so I'd expect this scenario to still take a good four hours with very brisk play assuming this sort of time trigger tempo.

Once my units were feeling a lot better, I started focusing on trying to eliminate as many of his broken units as I could, while he focused on trying to wipe out my lone remaining assault leader. In fact, he was able to do so when a light mortar (that's right, a light mortar, the most useless weapon in the game for everything but laying smoke) managed to break said leader right before a high value direct fire attack eliminated him. I was fairly sure this was game over for the CW forces, but in CC you never know who will win until the game is over so I soldiered on. I'll also note that while I'd just fixed my HMG, Matt broke it again almost immediately.

Meanwhile, the Emperor's Hero, Mifune, was having a fine old time popping out of spider holes. He'd already pulled this trick during the first session, although IIRC he was not particularly effective in doing any damage to the pinned force he showed up next to. The second time, he popped up on what was my left flank, taking out an ANZAC squad in the process in Melee (he has no range). The third time, he popped up again near the Indians, and this time he, with the help of a Div B unit, managed to eliminate my third Indian unit, a lone squad.

Heroes come in all colors and creeds, however, and in our game that was proven true when Winslow made an appearance with my forward units on the right flank, just in time to make that an effective fighting force again. I'd been able to do a little fighting with my recently re-fixed HMG, but 7 FP just wasn't enough to make hay with.

Meanwhile, the time triggers were coming fast, and we approached our first sudden death roll. I'd finally started to do some damage (although my air support ended up not being effective - always exciting to get one of those aircraft on the board) to his broken units before Matt finally started getting Revive cards, and the VP total was slowly but surely working it's way over to my side of the board. It was on one of his attacks on my forward right flank stack that I got a battlefield promotion event that gave me Pvt White (or whatever his name is) who is a pretty decent leader, if a little fragile. I got Winslow out of the hex shortly thereafter to allow me to get the full benefit of the foxhole, so now I had two stacks in play on that flank. When I got reinforcements on an event shortly thereafter, things were looking very good and I just needed to get that last seven points, excepting whatever the secret objective I had was.

Meanwhile, the time triggers kept coming, and suddenly we were making Sudden Death rolls. The first one went high (needed to be less than 8), and I was sure the second was going to bite me as well even though I had the Initiative on both rolls. It too went high, but with the SD marker on 10 my luck was coming close to running out.

As it turned out, that secret objective was going to get Matt two more points (Obj 4, right in the midst of his pinning force) and I wasn't going to get that far. So it was that I managed to advance into a hex with a broken Div A unit that I killed even with Matt's three (!) Bayonet cards. Now it was down to five points, and Matt sent in his last big forward stack, the one with the 2 leader, to take on my forces with their 2 leader in melee. He had a four point advantage after we both played Ambush cards, but I had saved my own Bayonets as well, albeit just one card. I had the Initiative, but two points is a big gap to leap in this game. Matt drew a 6, and so it was that I needed an 8 or higher just to kill his guys (although an 8 would have given us a wash in terms of points). I drew a 10, as it was, and suddenly I was up three points, leaving me one VP slop in case he took out a team before the game ended.

As it was, the game ended almost immediately with a card-based time trigger that, sure enough, came in below 10, and the blokes had pulled it off. Interestingly, had Matt chosen *not* to come after me, he probably would have won the game, assuming the time trigger fired off at the same time. I would have needed another Advance card to press the issue, and to be fair I would have been digging for Bayonets and Ambushes every turn, all the time worrying if those Indians would hold out a little longer. However, I could see him making the attack given that he had what was a four point advantage going in and an Ambush card. Had I not had the Bayonets, he would almost certainly have won, so no bust on him for the choice.

Did I mention that the scenario is rarely over until it's over? This one literally came down to the last couple of turns and in dramatic fashion. No question I got very lucky with my last two Melee attempts, not to mention those two SD rolls that gave me just enough time to pull the game out.

Oh, did I mention the jungle caught on fire too? And that Matt got an SNLF unit to infiltrate to my backfield? And the divebomber that didn't? This game is like a movie, nearly every time.

It was an epic game, the sort that makes me want to pull it out again and play *today*. Having this on an iPad or other tablet device would be *awesome*, and it's exactly the right size map so that it would work. I know GMT is looking seriously at porting some of it's games to tablet devices, and this would be a no brainer for both e-play and pass-n-play modes. And with an effective AI... Hoo mama.

Thanks Matt for the excellent company and for being an excellent opponent both during the game and in defeat. Sometimes I feel like I've earned a win, and this time, despite some luck at the end, this was one of those times.

Recent Euros I've Been Playing

2011-07-19T12:12:00.000-07:00

After the blitz of gaming that was Sunriver for Alex and I, things have slowed down quite a bit. Well, except when it comes to iAscension, which could just as easily be called iCrack. Except a lot cheaper. I estimate I've played about 100 games of this marvelous iPad app, as well as on the iPhone when I've been stuck at the doctor's office. I'm ready for the expansion to find it's way to the app, but particularly I'd love to see achievements and the ability to interact with others in online games (although I just finished an online game that took about a week, and I can say that this game does *not* shine in that situation). I know that the iOS5 update coming in the fall is supposed to coincide with some GameCenter buffs, so hopefully that will help.

Which is not to say that I haven't been gaming, oh no. I've gotten to try out three new games, one of which is an expansion, and I'll almost certainly try out the new Thunderstone expansion solitaire very shortly. Here's my take on these "new to me" games...

7 Wonders: Leaders

I was a little nervous about this elegant game getting an extra mechanism bolted onto it, but actually it turns a game that was fairly tactical into something a little more strategic. Leaders are cards that aren't part of the regular drill but instead let you toss in special mutant powers each era. The cards each give some sort of benefit in points or abilities at a coinage cost. You go through a short draft process at the start to distribute them, with four cards in your hand at the start of the game once you're done. You have the option to buy one leader at the start of each era, and that leader's ability, if persistent, stays in play through the entire game. The abilities I had in my game gave you a one resource discount on blue card purchases, a one time 6 dollar payout (Croesus, hilarious), and two different science cards (tablet and gear).

I based my choices on my wonder, which was the one that gave you a choice of science icons for the second stage. That locked me into a science strategy, or at least the strong possibility of going hard for science, which I did. I ended up with five tablets at the end, which was sadly not enough for me to win but enough to be a strong contender. In general, the wonders give you a fairly good idea of a possible strategy for the game, but you can pick different ones based on your leaders, and even keep a certain amount of flexibility if you choose for a multi-pronged approach.

I don't recommend using these with new players, as the core iconography is going to overwhelm them anyway, but I felt the leader cards gave the game additional heft at a very low cost in terms of complexity and additional time. The core game retains it's charm (largely because of it's brevity). While I only have the one game under my belt, I was impressed enough to buy the expansion and I'll include it in games with experienced players.

Space Hulk: Death Angel

I'm no fan of Games Workshop. They have a terrible reputation with third-party websites and retailers and like to rejigger their minis games on what seems to be a weekly basis to drive additional sales. Still, I admit a certain sick fascination with the dystopian future presented in their Warhammer 40k line. I do own some minis left over from a brief flirtation with clinical depression/OCD in the mid-90's, but now I limit myself to the occasional game such as Space Hulk and, of course, Dark Angel.

Dark Angel is a cooperative card game that is, for all practical purposes, Space Hulk Lite. The situation is the same (you are a bunch of heavily armored and armed Space Marines, although curiously not Dark Angel Space Marines, or even that chapter's Terminators - forgive me if I'm screwing up the mythology here, I'm going off of a rapidly degrading memory), and you are in a Space Hulk (abandoned space ship) that has been overrun with Genestealers (and I have *never* been able to figure out what genes they are stealing - I think they *implant* their own genetic code, which is a different thing altogether) that are bringing down property values in the neighborhood. Plus if the ship ever crashed on a planet and anything aboard survived, then there would be a problem.

So you and your friends (or just you, as the game is built to play solitaire with few if any changes) are tasked with going in and kicking some Genestealer butt. The bad news is that your butt is almost certainly going to get come kickage as well. This game is brutal.

Each player takes a combat team of two SMs in preconfigured packages. Your team has three action cards that you use to determine what you'll be up to this turn, and each SM has a range that it can shoot at stuff. Your SM also has a facing, which frankly is what turns this from a pretty dull shoot and pray game into a tense and interesting affair. You can't "activate" terrain or shoot at Genestealers unless you are facing them (there are only two directions, but those suckers are *fast*), and you can't change facing unless you move. Which means you aren't shooting.

The turn is pretty simple - pick what your SMs are up to this turn (one choice for both SMs), do it, have GS's mess with you, and draw an event that has a better than even chance of ruining your day. Your choices are to Support (give someone a Support token that can be used to reroll a combat roll when that SM is facing what's attacking it), Move + Activate (change position in the formation of SMs, change facing, and activate terrain if possible), or Attack (pretty self-explanatory). You can't do the same action with the same combat team in two consecutive turns, so no one just sits on overwatch (my term) for the entire game. Each card has a different special action that you can take in addition to the basic action, depending on which team you are playing, such as a skull result from a GS attack changing the result to a miss. Events will do random wackiness plus also add GS's to the formation as well as move some of them around on occasion.

The game runs on a timer created by location cards you travel through and "blip" piles for each side of the formation, set by the location card you are currently at. Locations are semi-randomized depending upon the number of players, and you never know what's around the corner. They also determine the terrain card placement among the formation. Event cards will determine GS placement, all coming from the blip piles, among the terrain cards, with the location determining how many. When you run out of GS's from a given blip pile, you "travel" to the next location at the end of that segment (almost always after the Event segment, but not always, which will reconfigure the terrain (if not the GS's in the formation) and some random wackiness will ensue. The final location tells you what you need to do to win the game.

The combat die has six sides, with numbers ranging from 0-5, with an additional skull icon on the middle four numbers 1-4. Combat is pretty simple - if you are attacking, you want to roll a skull to kill a GS (assuming your special mutant Attack card power doesn't override that). If you are defending, you want to roll a number higher than the number of GS's in the swarm you are facing to force a miss, otherwise it's sayonara Space Marine. If you have a support token on that SM and are facing your attacker, you can use it to force a reroll (same with attacks), but make no mistake - this is an unforgiving atmosphere and it is not hard to lose your squad *really* fast.

In fact, it is very possible to lose your entire combat team on the first turn if things go horribly wrong. Even facing a Swarm of One (tm), you have a 1-in-3 chance of getting tapped for that particular SM. In my solitaire game, I managed to do this on the first four combat rolls I made for the GS's, including one that was a reroll. If you are the kind of person that dice hate, this may not be a game for you as the chances of quick death are pretty high.

Four turns in, I was thinking this was a game that was fairly broken based on my death rate of one SM/turn, but I realized that this is part of the design. You are *supposed* to lose SMs at a prodigious rate! Unfortunately, that means that usually someone's combat team is gone pretty quickly, so I'm thinking that while six people might be kind of fun at the same time it will probably also mean someone is out of the game fairly fast. Fortunately, with fewer players you get multiple teams and thus stay involved through the entire game. Certainly you do playing solitaire.

That said, I was averaging about two rounds per location card, and made it to the final location with two SMs left, both from different teams. Really important that you consider *trying* to do this by how you place your SMs in your formation when being attacked by GS's, as if you have only one team left they both have to do the same action and that never works out. One was purple flamethrower guy, who takes out multiple GS's when he Attacks, but it didn't help. I had three or four GS's per swarm (one on each side of the formation) and both SMs were gone in the next turn.

Not a result that was surprising, however. I've heard it's a tough game to win, although less so solitaire because there's no arguing about how to proceed with the mission. Also, I'd randomly selected three teams of the six so I have no idea about how well they worked together.

In the end, I really enjoyed this as a solitaire title, and it would make a fun filler, especially at Sunriver in the late evening. If you can get past the "lose half of your team on a single roll" factor, I think this is a pretty cool little game. Certainly small enough to take with you on a trip, it's the same box size as Red November.

One caveat - the rules are supposed to be atrocious, and in fact I did not find them that way. Yes, things are scattered all over the place, but if you walk through the sequence of play all is pretty clear. What was *not* clear was that things go on one side or the other. Terrain cards are placed based on which side of the location card their icon is on. GS's go to the side with the terrain card. I was surprised that this wasn't mentioned more clearly, as this sort of thing is a little unusual as far as strategy games and Euros go. That said, I didn't think the rules were nearly as bad as many had made them out to be, and in fact the BGG "Things You'll Screw Up" thread applied to me in exactly one case out of 20. Not to say these are great rules, just not Satan personified as some might have you believe.

Spectral Rails

Last game in my wrapup. This one I've actually played twice now. It's a bit of a bear to explain, but I find it to be a surprisingly deep game given it's generally simple mechanisms. The theme is based on trying to take spirits from one ghost town to another so that they can rest in peace. Why one ghost town is better than another is beyond me, but that's your job.

At it's heart, the game is a simple pick up and deliver your load train game but with a few neat twists. The first is that you power your train with Ether cards, of which everyone has an identical deck. The cards range in value from 1-4, with most of your cards being lower valued. You use the same cards to bid to see who goes first in each turn. To make things more complex, the cards are played in order (a point the rulebook makes about 50 times) and you only get them back a handful at a time, and in First In First Out order (a "queue" for those of you familiar with data structures in computer science).

A turn consists of three phases that feel like they were taken directly from Martin Wallace's spare room. You begin by bidding to see who will be the Spirit Leader (really), using the cards to bid. Losers in the process get to take back a card, but the rest stay *in order* (as the rulebook reminds us regularly) in front of you. This Spirit Leader also gets to choose who will *be* the new Spirit Leader and thus go first in the Movement round.

The middle part of the turn consists of repeated Movement phases, which you do until people have spent their limit in Ether cards (13 points) and used their two Coins, or passed. Once everyone passes, you go to a Replenishment phase where you get half the cards in front of you rounded down, taking them from the least recently used cards, and you get your Coins back. Then you go back to bidding for a new round.

Once the three Train Wreck tokens have been taken from the board (which happens when someone enters that particular ghost town), you finish the turn and move on to the second round which looks a lot like the first but has some scoring complexities and a new set of Train Wreck tokens. In practice, a round will consist of one or two turns, and you need to be aware of the possibility of the round or game ending.

The really critical part is the movement phase, and it's best to start with how much it costs to move. Your train has a Ether Trail it leaves behind it as it moves, which looks a lot like track in any other train game. The twist here is that you cannot move over a line that has your Ether Trail on it during that particular phase, even if you pick it up, but everyone else can move along it for free. If you move along track that is open, it costs one point per Ether Trail laid down. You can move along both other people's Ether Trails as well as open track in the same turn.

Here's how it works. First, you may pick up one spirit in the ghost town you are currently in, assuming you are. Next, you choose Ether cards to play of some point value, which go down in your queue in front of you. Next, you see if you have enough Ether Trail markers in your pool, which should not be the case after the first few movement phases. If not, you pick up segments on the board that are not connected to your train directly, and if they are all connected directly, you pick up any of them, based on the number you played with the cards. Note that you don't necessarily need to *play* them all, it's based on what cards you played. Next, you move as outlined above, remembering that you can't move over segments you removed your own Trails from. It is very possible to have multiple colors of Ether Trail going between cities - this is not like Ticket to Ride where one person owns a route, nor like Union Pacific where one segment gives you access. You do not need to stop in ghost towns, but it's usually a good idea to. As you move your train, you lay down Ether Trails along the open segments you've moved through. When you finish moving, if you are in a ghost town you can drop off passengers for that town at that time in any number. Note that you *never* drop off passengers unless they are in their town, so don't pick up just anybody. Also, having more than three passengers on your train requires you to burn one Ether card that counts against your 13 point per movement phase limit, so saving a 1 card for this purpose is not a terrible idea.

If you do not spend cards, whether you actually create more Ether Trails or not, you have to burn one of your two Coins. You can use this to sit in a town if you want for a turn without spending Ether cards so that you can pick up the second ghost, or just to see what the other ghost engineers are doing. You only have two per turn, but you get them back during Replenishment.

Depending upon if there are three or four players, there are five or six states in play, each of which has three towns. In the first round, each city starts with up to two spirits in it, but any spirits that start in their own town are removed from the game. In the second round, which has lighter backgrounds on the spirit markers, there is only one per town. That means each town has at the most three spirits that want to go there.

Points are given out at the end of the game as follows: Round 1 ghosts delivered in Round 1 and Round 2 ghosts delivered in Round 2 each are worth one point. Round 1 ghosts delivered in Round 2 are worth two points, so there's some reason to carry a few over. If you have a set of one ghost from each state, that set is worth five or six points. If you have a set of one ghost from each of the three towns in a state, that set is worth three points. If you have multiple sets, each is worth the bonus. Finally, any ghosts still on your train at game end are mad as hell and they're worth -1 point. Tie goes to whoever has the most Ether cards or points on those cards or some nonsense.

As you can see, this is a difficult game to explain well, but once you've played it becomes much clearer. The game requires planning but also flexibility. Trying to collect sets is smart, but so is exploiting your opponents' Ether Trails. Figuring out how you want to proceed and dealing with the other players not cooperating is where the fun is in this game.

I will also note that the rules are pretty clear, but very verbose (like me) and with a lot of "flavor" in them that I found a little grinding the further along I got. However, everything you know is in there if you don't mind someone standing over your shoulder and reminding you not to mess with your queue every paragraph or two.

Components are great, although there is one icon on the map for placing second round Train Wreck markers that shouldn't be there. Easy mnemonic is to remember that the two sets each form a triangle, and both triangles form a six-pointed star. I'd have preferred a different way of tracking points, too, one that would allow me to keep track of sets *and* which round the Round 1 ghosts had been delivered.

Which makes me wonder why a Round 1 marker would be happier taking longer to get to it's final resting place, but really mad if it didn't make it at all. There I go again trying to rationalize theme.

Fortunately, the game itself is really pretty cool. Play time takes about 75 minutes with experienced players, perhaps less. 'Splainin' time takes about 20 minutes, though - if you followed my explanation above you are smarter than I am. There's a lot of "new" ground in how this game works.

That said, I really like this game. It's got a lot of nice new twists on what is becoming a fairly tired genre of train games, and even though the Old West is my least favorite setting, I really enjoyed trying to parse what my best move was to set me up for the next turn, as well as the various screwage opportunities present. Seeing how the board evolves is always a lot of fun, and it goes from being pretty cohesive early to Ejaculating Skittles by the end. I am very interested to try with three, although I suspect four is the sweet spot (and perhaps the game's biggest shortcoming).

And that, as they say, is that. I'm also looking forward to giving the new Junta game a try in the near future, but not this week.

PQ-17, or How Really Bad Weather Saved My Bacon

2011-07-10T12:26:00.001-07:00

My main focus in wargaming has historically been land battles. I love me some Down In Flames for light play just like the next guy, but I've just never been able to get too far into naval or air operations. Over the past few years, some notable exceptions have popped up, such as Nightfighter, The Burning Blue, and Downtown on the air side, and the Fleet series from Victory Games. Actually, I've loved the Fleet series since I started collecting it in the early 90's and I'm very happy to have all of those games in my collection. Our four-player game this past WBC West playing 2nd Fleet was a high point in a week of very good gaming, and we plan to follow up next year with another large scenario.

What I've learned through these games is that there's a joy in planning and a joy in deciphering plans. There's a joy in the search, and a joy in the discovery. Even if it's 40 degrees below zero outside.

Thus it was that when Tex taught me PQ-17 as my final scheduled game of WBC West 2011, the seed was well and truly planted for me to become more interested in this genre of wargaming. I don't know that I'll ever enjoy naval games at the tactical level, certainly not so long as a game like War Galley or Flying Colors requires what my friend Tripp called "counter stew" and I will call a "countercopia". That said, the Fleet series, and now it's conceptual second cousin once removed PQ-17, will become games that are a regular part of my rotation.

PQ-17 is set in 1941-43 largely in the ocean area bounded by the UK on the south, Iceland in the west, the coast of Norway and the White Sea in the east, and Spitzbergen Is. and the polar icecap in the north. The game consists mostly (but not entirely) of convoy operations between the UK/Iceland and Murmansk, including both loaded convoys on their way to Russia and the empty "ballasted" convoys returning home. While the German surface fleet will most often be hiding in port, it remains a threat in being and can not only come out to wreak havoc but also may be assigned to an Atlantic breakout, requiring the Allies to be on their toes. The various scenarios, each lasting 15 days of two turns each, cover a wide range of historical convoys, and there is also a campaign game that allows you to play out a year's worth of "fortnights", about 25 games in length. Play time ranges from 3-6 hours depending upon how complex a given scenario is.

Tripp came over yesterday to play PQ-17, and we had a great time. This was my second game and the first game for Tripp. We played PQ-9/10, a C3i scenario that the designer, Chris Janiec, uses to demo the game at cons. Compared with the intro game that Tex and I played seven weeks ago, this is a much better choice - you have all elements active (unlike the boxed scenario that hobbles the German air force, which is grounded short of a miraculous random event roll that *might* give you a little action once or twice during the game) but the planning phase is largely skipped to get right into the game itself. Since most players aren't going to be terribly effective in planning right out of the gate, this is a good way to get started.

I'd like to mention the ruleset for this game before I go into my recap of the game and my thoughts on the system, as it's been the element that's gotten the most criticism. The designer himself has already acknowledged the ruleset's shortcomings (oh, if only some other designers were so humble, and long time readers will know exactly who I'm talking about), but I agree with his assessment that the actual rules are extremely easy to work with on a system-by-system basis, and that the main issue with the rulebook is about structure, but there are issues with the descriptive material at the front that are enormous gumption traps for anyone trying to learn the game from the rules. There are a few language issues here and there as well. That said, aside from there being a lot of small subsystems you'll need to learn over time, at it's core this is a very easy game to play - you move, you search, you shoot.

The game is based to some extent on the Fleet series, mostly in terms of the variety of combat involved. There is torpedo combat (torp bombers and subs), bombing combat, anti-aircraft fire, air-to-air combat, surface gunnery, ASW, the entire gamut. In fact, about half of the rules you need to play the non-campaign game are tied up in combat. Which is hilarious because in my experience you actually *fight* about a quarter of the time, if not less. Every time you want to shoot at a force on the map, you have to find it first, even if you've already "found" it. And it is in the searching, not the combat, where the tension and fun in this game lies.

How to best simulate air/naval operations in a boardgame? As the designer lays out in his notes, it's been a bit of a problem for designers for decades. The old AH Midway game used a double-blind system that required you to give away where your own units were, to some extent, when you searched for your opponent's forces. A large number of systems use plotting, often in advance, to simulate slow response times and the size of the area being searched. The Fleet system was probably the most accessible, although the technology is so much more advanced that it wouldn't work well in a WW2 era game.

While less accessible than Fleet, PQ-17 (just PQ from now on) does an excellent job of managing the concept, and does it in a way that creates a fair amount of detail while keeping the mechanisms themselves very manageable. The key is to use blocks, but unlike most block wargames the orientation of the block does not reflect combat strength but how well that "force" has been identified. A face-down block is in port, an upright block is at sea but unidentified. Once identified, the force is placed face up and it's orientation now shows how recently and how effectively the force has been tagged by the enemy. As time goes on, the "ID level" which ranges from 0-3 (4 if a force is photo-reconned in port) will increase or degrade, determined by combat, shadowing by enemy recon forces, movement, and time of day. Once an enemy force is identified and face up, you can send units against it, although they need to find it once they get there.

Of particular interest are the way that you detect the enemy and how you maintain that detection. The first line is the air radii, which simply means the area that each side is able to maintain regular air recon operations. For the Germans, that's the area around the entrances to the Baltic. For the Allies, it's the areas around the UK and Iceland and to some extent between the two. The Russians have an air radii, but it's very small and only around Murmansk. Obviously these areas are set in the game by map iconography. Aircraft carriers also can provide air radii in their hex, and some aircraft can provide them on a hex-by-hex basis if a player chooses.

The second level of detection involves Air Sectors, which are also delineated on the map. Each player has Air Sector counters assigned by the scenario that can be used to search individual hexes in their predefined areas. For the Germans, that means the North Sea, the waters around Trondheim, and the Barents Sea. For the Brits, it's the area around Iceland. Often the path your convoys will take are largely determined by the limits of these Air Sectors.

The third level of detection is based on having your forces in the same space as your enemy's forces. You also have the ability to try to detect forces moving through hexes you occupy, which if detected will cause combat. Forces can also be detected in port by photo recon, but aside from seeing if the German High Seas Fleet is in port or not, this is a very small part of the game (but can be very important).

Detection is accomplished through the use of cards, much as is done in The Burning Blue. I like this considerably better than simply rolling on a table for a couple of reasons. First, a card can give considerably more information and detail about whether or not a search occurs, whereas tables tend to be fairly compact and "one-size-fits-all". In PQ, the cards take into account whether a force you are searching for is already identified, and how well, whether it is being shadowed, whether it is near a coastline, whether it is a submarine, what the weather and light conditions are, and whether there are enemy air forces nearby. In addition, if the force is discovered, it can determine how well the force has been recced and set the ID level accordingly. It's a very nice evolution of the Burning Blue system, and aside from requiring frequent reshuffling (every turn, up to 30 times in a game) it's an extremely elegant system once you internalize the symbology (which takes about half of a game). Also of note is that such elements as weather and what sort of force (air, naval, or both) is doing the searching play a role in the results.

Detection is great for getting units identified, which means you can attack them. Unfortunately, you move your aircraft before you detect anything, so often you'll detect a force during a Day turn but won't be able to send your units against it until the following Day turn (assuming a Spring/Fall scenario - being this far north, some scenarios are all Day and some are all Night), so you will probably want to "shadow" the force to keep it's ID level constant. If you detected the force with an air sector marker, you can use it to shadow the force but it won't be able to search for other forces while it does so. Shadowing also improves your odds of being able to actually find the damned force when you go to attack it, which uses the same mechanism but doesn't change ID levels. In other words, just because one of your searchers finds a force doesn't mean you will successfully even *start* to attack it. The exception is if it's detected during movement through an enemy force's hex, which immediately results in combat.

Of course, there are a certain number of "dummy" blocks that are intended to keep your opponent guessing. You can only place dummies when surface groups are in port or when a force goes back to unidentified at the start of movement (if it is unshadowed and already at ID0), but they are extremely useful for eating up clock cycles as your opponent works his way through them. Some dummies are also placed by scenario rule at the start, which is generally how subs use them.

If you've seen the game, you know that there are not only the force blocks on the map, but also a bunch of actual unit counters (large square ones for the ships and subs, rounds of various sizes for air). While air units go on the map, the naval units themselves go on your force display which shows which block they belong to. Hilariously, the naval units work exactly like more traditional blocks do - they have a CS value that dictates combat strength. Named units are single ships capable of taking multiple hits, while destroyers, torpedo boats, "escorts", and merchantmen all consist of one or more ship per CS. CS dictates not only how intact a force is, it also dictates how many dice they roll in combat as well as often dictating how fast a unit can move (from one to three hexes per turn based on the color of the circle around the CS value). Superscripts dictate AA values. Air units, on the other hand, are a single CS per side, although their values are used in a similar fashion.

I believe that part of the difficulty this game has gotten gaining traction with the wargaming community is largely because the initial part of the rules tries to explain the components in some depth, in turn because the blocks are used like units and units used like blocks compared with other games. Certainly one glance at your typical air counter will reveal up to eight or nine pieces of information, and the ship counters are not much less complex. A game with this much data *has* to be confusing, right? In fact, most of the air unit info pertains simply to size, range, and capability. For example, a unit might have up to five or six letter codes that say if it is recon, torpedo, ASW, or photo capable, as well as it's anti-air value and it's home base (important because aircraft are not permitted to rebase in the fortnight scope). Within a short amount of time, you realize that these codes are all pretty readable in the scope of the game, although they are daunting when you are trying to learn the game. Even the type of unit (MB for medium bomber, for example, DB for dive bomber) really only comes into play during combat, so for most of the game you just need to know if a unit can recon and it's range.

I won't go into the combat realm other than to say that every type has a different process but all share the same basics - you have to find your target, then you roll dice based on your CS that need to hit target numbers based on the attacking and target types with various DRMs based on the environment and target/attacker status. I'd have preferred to have seen the rules follow the entire procedure for each combat type rather than give some general rules then give the remaining part of the process in the individual sections. If you are learning the game, read the first page and a half of the combat rules that are general in scope and leave the rest for when you actually need to perform the combat. A play aid would be a good idea here, and I'm surprised no one has made one yet. One other important note: subs can't move *and* attack in the same turn, so you have to do a certain amount of lying in wait. Surprisingly, wolfpack tactics can be very effective here if you have dummies floating around the ocean.

Another similarity with Burning Blue is that you don't just send all of your ships out to sea. Instead, you pay command points, which later translate into VP for the other side, every time you send a ship of a certain size out of port. Send the whole fleet and you'll end up losing the game even if you never get attacked. The Germans have even stiffer requirements, often needing to have a big enough target to risk a capital ship asset. The Soviets don't have issues with leaving port, but they can get expensive when they stray far from home, which in this case is largely defined as a couple of hexes. Even their subs are very limited in where they can go.

While the map might seem to be constant, in fact the polar ice cap plays a significant role. There are two zones of ice, east and west, which dictate what the conditions are when moving from one hex to another. If there is any ice, there is a chance that units will be damaged, but you don't always know what the conditions are in a given "band" as printed on the map. Often, a band will say "Light Drift?" meaning that once you roll on the table you'll find out. In particularly harsh conditions such as pack ice, forces have the option to "turn back" if the conditions are worse than expected with less damage. You risk the ice at your peril, but often it's a good way to throw your opponent off the scent if he suspects you are only sending a dummy force through it. Ice is set by scenario, so it can be relatively open or closed depending upon the time of year. This is the most elaborate but yet elegant system I've seen for managing this aspect of the environment in any wargame, especially after becoming more interested in Arctic exploration over the past 12 months personally

Finally, I'll mention the wacky part of the game - random events and special conditions. Random events are things that pop up during play, and they are rolled for every turn by both players, each having their own results table. In general, these will create local weather, collisions (if in foggy weather), bring in reinforcements, all sorts of things that you'd expect from a standard convoy mission.

Special conditions, however, are a much different beast and while I'm tempted to teach this game without using them, there's no question that they create a lot of extra tension and can really mix a game up. Each player draws a single chit with a letter to determine what their special condition is, which can include delivering gold back from the USSR, bombing raids on the Tirpitz by Bomber Command, the dreaded Atlantic Breakout by the German navy, various special operations to mine Murmansk's harbor or raid Norwegian ports, all sorts of stuff. The various scenarios also provide special situations, so replayability goes way up even with the 13 or so scenarios I have access to (two extras included online or to preorders, as well as one included in C3i). Even the scenarios can result in a much different mission than a convoy, so there's a lot of game in this box.

Back to the recap!

Tripp and I played the PQ-9/10 scenario included in C3i, which was historical but uneventful, so it's a bit on the alt-history side but not much so. It's definitely the best way to teach the game to an experienced wargamer as it bypasses prep without too much trouble and includes a lot of forces without overwhelming the players. My goal as the Brits was to get a convoy, already off of the east coast of Iceland, to Murmansk in more or less one piece. This is a small convoy on the verge of being a large convoy (10CS of MVs) but no return convoy from Murmansk. The Brits have an aircraft carrier, and the AM turns are daylight while the PM turns are night. The Germans can't sortie with the Tirpitz until they roll a reinforcement random event, and even then they can send out a dummy to keep the Brits guessing, but first they have to roll that reinforcement, which is not a given in any game.

My initial plan was to leave the Home Fleet in Scapa Flow but to definitely sortie the carrier group (supported by some very big guns) to help provide a certain degree of air support and search capability. I also had a CL in Scotland that needed to get to Murmansk as well. I broke my subs into two wolfpacks of two subs each, one to watch the waters around Trondheim in case the Tirpitz got out, the other to try to counter the German subs blocking the path to Murmansk.

On Tripp's part, he chose not to send out his destroyer in Kirkenes to challenge the Soviet "fleet" of one wolfpack, two destroyers, and an escort, but it did force me to leave those units in port for defense. His primary defense was to use his wolfpacks (sadly, his dummy forces were eliminated early thanks to my random events) and air units to try to find and kill my convoy.

In the early game, Tripp was very successful in locating a small destroyer TF and sinking one while crippling the other, putting it out of the game immediately. Worse, he located my Adventure TF carrying diplomats and sunk it as well, treating it like a sunk convoy. Meanwhile, my Bomber Command special condition was less than successful - you need two hits to do any lasting damage to the Tirpitz, and while my photo recon worked right away, the bombers only got one hit. It's hard to hit ships with heavy bombers!

It was in the mid-game where things got very interesting. As I approached Bear Island, the historical limit of British TF operations largely because of harsh limits on ships that can dock in Murmansk (and you need to dock them before their fuel runs out, also a very elegant system), Tripp managed to locate my convoy during a night turn, meaning that the next turn he could fly every bomber in range to attack it. Miraculously, a Gale came up that turn that prevented air operations, and while my convoy was delayed and half of the ships dispersed (very bad if there *was* an attack), he was unable to find me with his naval forces and I not only managed to become unidentified but also generated an extra dummy counter. Tripp was unable to locate the convoy for the rest of the game.

Which was also good because he got his 1CP reinforcement that allowed him to send out the Tirpitz. That was a 3VP cost to him, but we figured that if you have the chance to sortie, you do it because it's more fun that way. Despite a little bit of back and forth with a wolfpack I'd left for just such a contingency, the Tirpitz was ineffective and never saw actual combat.

In the end, the game was surprisingly close, 4VP to my side. I'd sent out maybe one or two ships too many (should have left the battleships in Reykjavik, but the carrier was very useful), and the loss of the Adventure and the DD hurt. Fortunately, every ship in the convoy arrived. Had Tripp not sortied the Tirpitz, the game would have barely been mine. I have a strong sense that I misplayed a wolfpack of mine that went into a hex with one of my taskforces on one or two occasions, and I also suspect that perhaps Tripp didn't get enough points for the CL he sank, so it may have been even closer. The important thing, however, was to learn the game (and reinforce what I'd learned in my game with Tex) and to get a sense how the game felt with all of the various forces in active play.

At this point, my very early verdict is that this is a game worth learning. You will in all likelihood want to have it taught to you rather than try to learn from the rules, although my understanding is that the designer has a 1940 Norway expansion in the works (and in fact there are components in the box solely for use in this expansion, particularly Axis convoy forces), and that he intends to do considerable rewriting of the rules in conjunction with it's release. I hope that's the case - the game isn't all that difficult, but there is a lot of chrome and a few conceptual hurdles to be met. Really, it's the only flaw I can find in a theater that I've recently become more interested in and that has struggled to find a system that does it justice.

I also understand that the designer intends to take the system to other theaters, such as the Solomons or the Med in the future. I think that's a great idea, and I plan to take a more evangelical approach to this game than I do with most.

If you bought this game but gave up after taking one look at the rules, I strongly recommend you take the time to find someone who can teach it to you. I may try to put up a demo video at some point to try to teach the game, as it teaches quite well as you play with only a very small amount of preface material to cover nomenclature and a few key concepts. It's definitely worth the effort to learn if you have even a passing interest in the topic, and it's a really fun game to boot with a lot of variety. Give it a shot.