You know what my favorite part about Christmas is? Finding out that someone has hacked our credit card two weeks before the holiday. Especially when the person telling me this over the phone is clearly not a native English speaker ("can you spell that? Slowly?" They must think I'm a billion years old). Then they suggest we log on online to see what charges are ours and are not, and we are locked out. Sayonara, Capital One, you're complete lack of customer support has lost you another customer.
But I'm supposed to be Mr. Whiney on Dice Tower, not here in my blog! So I will take this opportunity to recap our South Tuesday session at Mike's this past Tuesday instead!
There were a ton of people there - me, Peter, KC, Mike (obviously, it's his house), Alex, Liz, Ben, Jim, Tim, and George. While everyone was still arriving, Ben set up his Tumbling Dice game and Alex, Liz, he, and myself gave it a shot.
Tumbling Dice is yet another "flicking" game, except instead of wooden disks, you flick dice off of a platform onto a very nice wooden board. The board consists of four tiers - from top to bottom; the "launch" pad, the 0x/1x level (the largest), the 2x, and the 3x levels. There are also three small 4x areas below the 3x area. At the back of the 3x and 4x areas are pins to prevent some of the dice from continuing off of the board. It's a lot easier to understand if you see the board, but trust me that it's a very nice setup.
Each player has four dice that they flick off of the launch pad one at a time in player order (so player 1 flicks one die, then player 2, etc, until all players have flicked four dice each). If your dice falls off of the board, it won't score any points. However, there is no penalty for knocking off someone else's die off of the board. Likewise, it is possible for your die to hit another die so that it will score more or fewer points by moving to another area of the board or changing which side is face up.
Scores are computed by multiplying each die on the board by the area it's in once all dice have been flicked. The highest score then begins the next round, and works it's way down from there. After four rounds, you add up all of your scores and the highest wins.
The game plays very quickly and has almost no downtime. Much of the fun comes from hitting other people's dice and knocking them off, although just as often the dice ended up in a higher multiplier area with a better number! Having the pins at the back of the board makes for even more unpredictability.
On the downside, this is not a cheap game, and this is not a small game. At $50 at discount in a box that would hold perhaps four or so "normal" boardgames (it's even bigger than the Carabande box), this is a bit of a stretch purchase unless you and/or your family like flicking games. I can see my family digging this when we're all out at Sunriver, and it would take up shelf space there rather than at my home, but it won't make it into my home collection for those reasons. If you don't mind those issues, this one is a winner.
Of course, Cooley's Law does play a role here, as I surged past Ben in the final round with 43 points for a crushing win!
By now, everyone was there (told you TD was quick), so we broke up into a group of four playing Anno 1503 (Mike, Tim, Peter, and KC), while the rest of us played Atlantic Star. I reported in more depth on the game in my last Sunriver report, when we played a game with KC and Rita. In our game, only Jim and I had played before, and Jim had played last weekend so I had someone to help me remember all of the rules as I did some 'splainin'.
I think a key strategy in this game is to put out a decent but not necessarily killer cruise line that you don't feel too bad about using later on for a loan, and this is exactly what I did with a four-line Mediterranean cruise that I promptly put in the one-star column (which means even worst place gets decent points). I was able to get my big 6-line Pacific cruise out without having to take a loan as well, but I'd done well with my 3-line Baltic cruise, which was a five-star and I was in first with 23 points, which I kept until the end. In the end, I had to spend my last dollar (after two loans) to get my last card for my last cruise launched intact, and that with two cards in-hand. Had I not finally gotten an E line card, I would have been two points out of first place in the two-star column, which would have let Liz sneak by me for the win!
This is a game that plays best with 6, simply because there is so much competition for the cards and so much chance to ruin someone's day by wiping the cards off of the agency board. I still think that Show Manager has a better theme, but the game is exactly the same and one of the five best games for six out there (Medici and Elfenlands also come to mind). And, I won my second game of the evening!
After this game, Alex and Liz headed for home so we gave the newest Sunriver Games title, Incan Gold, a try. This game has a certain amount of controversy surrounding it, in no small part because of the 'Geek, but I will state here for the record that the folks who run Sunriver games have the highest ethical standards, and in no way did they "steal" anything, intellectual or otherwise, in the creation of this game.
Incan Gold is a slightly modified version of Diamant, the very cool but overpriced press-your-luck game. The theme has moved to exploring a Mayan temple, and the artwork is excellent and evokes the theme quite well. Instead of gems, the "money" now consists of very nice plastic bits intended to represent nuggets of turquoise, gold, and onyx. There are still a few production issues to clear up, but the game is essentially finished. The only rules change is the addition of an increasing number of "artifact" cards that go to whoever is the sole person to bail in a given turn, unlike unclaimed nuggets that get split up among the bailing players. I have no experience with Diamant, so I really can't compare, but it occurs to me that the addition of artifacts gives players who find themselves seriously behind a (small) chance to catch up if things go their way in the final round.
We played with the maximum, 8, and I have to say that this is perhaps the best longish filler game out there for that number, putting it in the company of, uhm, let's see, uhm...
Some help here?
OK, Saboteur. But I like this better. Yes, Dave, I like it better, even though you told us dozens of times that we should get this game for that very reason. You. Were. Right. Although it may be just a bit too long to qualify as filler.
Peter won, partly through picking exactly the right time to bail in order to get very good points for artifacts and loose stones. Mike did an awesome job of sticking around in an early round that netted him enough points for second, and I was at least in the hunt for third with 25 points. I'm looking forward to getting a copy of this game, as it's a very nice reprint of the original title. While it doesn't have the elaborate gem chests of Diamant, it certainly won't be confused for one of those "cheap American reprints" that the 'Geek seems to think it will be. Nicely done, Sunriver Games.
Thanks for hosting, Mike. The next session will be the pre-Christmas fest at my home on the 19th, where we will consider doing a gift exchange!
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
Sunday, December 10, 2006
Die Macher Night at Chris's
Christ hosted a game day at his place on Saturday, with a session of Roads and Boats in the morning (with Wes, Michael, and Eric), and two games of Die Macher in the evening hours (with Ken, his son Brandon, Chris's son Jacob, Chuck, Mike, Hazmatt, and myself). The first four played on Chris's board, the last four on mine.
Of all of the players, only Chuck had actually played before, so I took a stab at explaining the overall arc of the game with his help to everyone at once. Theoretically, each segment has a relatively small number of rules, and the idea was that Chris could cover all of those as they progressed through the game. We all opted to play the shorter 5-turn version in the interest of time, which turned out to be a good idea. We all used the reprint edition of the game, which has it's plusses and minuses.
First, a word about the reprint. One of the big problems that our group had with the game (and the reason I refused to play) was ambiguity about whether or not you could reverse your party's position (going from pro to con) with a single card play. The new rules make no mention of any limitation in this regard, although there is a rule enforcing a more gradual change when it comes to the state and national mood. I found the rules to be extremely clear in most cases, although the exact process for determining who can be in a coalition is somewhat more difficult. We ended up playing that the first player can choose and/or force coalitions, moving around the table afterward. I'd like to see this clarified from an official source, but the Engish rules are otherwise quite clear on all points.
The big problem, however, is the position cards. Several of the icons used are very similar (nukes, industry, and terrorism), and the small icons on the popular opinion cards are very difficult to read. Against the light cream background, the containment tower on the nuke card becomes virtually invisible. Also, the use of up/down arrows vs check boxes (and the fact that the industry popular opinion and party platform cards don't even match), when all that is needed is a color, just adds to the confusion. This sort of thing is completely unacceptable in a reprint, and I'm considering making up my own cards as these are so difficult to parse on what is already a very busy board. Very poorly done, Valley Games.
Die Macher is a very sequence heavy game, and you have to be very very very very careful not to miss any segments. Which we did, almost immediately with serious consequences. In our case, we ended the first turn neglecting to get external money, which nearly killed both Mike and myself as we hadn't done well in the first election. We didn't catch the error until after the Shadow Cabinet phase of the second turn, which hurt me quite a bit. We ended up playing the cards after the Shadow Cabinet phase, but the damage was done to me trying to kill Matt and Chuck's stealing of that election with their coalition.
To make things worse, I'd bid for table position not realizing that I could be beat by a coalition, so there was more money wasted. In the third turn, I learned that you could have multiple coalitions, which came a little late in the game as well. I suspect that this game is very harsh to new players, as almost every decision you make ties in to a future decision or situation later on, and not having a thorough understanding of how everything fits together can produce quite a bit pain. I ended up being in strong position to win a couple of elections early, only to get beat because I didn't understand the coalition rules as well as I might have.
The capper was when I had the chance to change the popular opinion in the third election, and it was strongly suggested that I make a particular play that hurt me, but that also hurt Matt. When all was said and done, I ended up with 48 votes instead of 50, costing me 3 seats, which wouldn't have happened had I just left the opinion as it had been originally. The person suggesting the move had also missed the implications, but it's an object lesson as to how tightly built this game is. Clearly not a game for wimps!
That was the end of my whining for the game, fortunately. While I didn't do particularly well in the fourth election, I was well placed to finally win the fifth and final election, which also was for the most seats of any election in the game (36, which is relatively small compared to the 80 you can get in Berlin). I also did quite well in matching the National Opinion, but my population sucked and Matt ended up winning the game by a good 50 points over me. Chuck came in third 20 points behind me, with Mike trailing another 50 points behind him. A big part of Matt's success was adding 12 population early on, which gave him an extra $24,000 to work with over the course of the game (although most of us had bumped up $4 or $8 at start). He ended with well over 50 population, quite a large amount.
I really like this game, although it's clearly not the kind of game you pull out on a whim. It requires constant attention to not only what is going on in the various states, but also on the National Opinon board and what your neighbor's platforms are. Given that this element is the one component quality disaster in the game, the game is actually made more of a brain drain that it might otherwise have been. It's bad enough that Valley Games should seriously consider providing replacement cards for these two decks, they are that bad.
The game, however, rewards thinking ahead and managing a complex situation. There are a few luck elements - what cards you draw to adjust your platform (which has been improved from the original game), how well you roll when you take external money (or not) and decline to release opinion polls, and whether or not you get the opinion poll you are hoping for. However, the opinion poll comes under the heading of "you knew the job was dangerous when you took it" as is the external money mechanism. Of all of these luck factors, I could see the platform card draws as having the ability to sink a game without any ability for a player to recover, although it would have to be a pretty poor set of draws. A longer game would tend to average out the results from such pulls, and create more change over time to the national mood, so I suspect the short game is only really valuable if time is an issue or if you are playing a learning game (as we did).
Overall, I'm looking forward to another playing of this game, preferably soon to lock in the many (painful) lessons learned in my first game. Our playing time, including my initial 'splainin', took about 3.5 hours, and we had very few rules questions that couldn't be answered quickly (although I did have very scary moment when I thought that there might be *four* possible positions on an issue rather than just two, but it was just the bad components).
I've said it twice, I'll say it once more - Valley Games, you blew it big time on the Popular Opinion and Party Platform cards, and you should fix this problem. I know you are a small publisher, but these are critical components that have a huge effect on the game. It is far too easy for a player to confuse two of these symbols and make a game-ruining decision. Do the right thing and at least make replacement cards available at your cost. Otherwise, the game is a classic, so treat it with the respect it deserves.
Of all of the players, only Chuck had actually played before, so I took a stab at explaining the overall arc of the game with his help to everyone at once. Theoretically, each segment has a relatively small number of rules, and the idea was that Chris could cover all of those as they progressed through the game. We all opted to play the shorter 5-turn version in the interest of time, which turned out to be a good idea. We all used the reprint edition of the game, which has it's plusses and minuses.
First, a word about the reprint. One of the big problems that our group had with the game (and the reason I refused to play) was ambiguity about whether or not you could reverse your party's position (going from pro to con) with a single card play. The new rules make no mention of any limitation in this regard, although there is a rule enforcing a more gradual change when it comes to the state and national mood. I found the rules to be extremely clear in most cases, although the exact process for determining who can be in a coalition is somewhat more difficult. We ended up playing that the first player can choose and/or force coalitions, moving around the table afterward. I'd like to see this clarified from an official source, but the Engish rules are otherwise quite clear on all points.
The big problem, however, is the position cards. Several of the icons used are very similar (nukes, industry, and terrorism), and the small icons on the popular opinion cards are very difficult to read. Against the light cream background, the containment tower on the nuke card becomes virtually invisible. Also, the use of up/down arrows vs check boxes (and the fact that the industry popular opinion and party platform cards don't even match), when all that is needed is a color, just adds to the confusion. This sort of thing is completely unacceptable in a reprint, and I'm considering making up my own cards as these are so difficult to parse on what is already a very busy board. Very poorly done, Valley Games.
Die Macher is a very sequence heavy game, and you have to be very very very very careful not to miss any segments. Which we did, almost immediately with serious consequences. In our case, we ended the first turn neglecting to get external money, which nearly killed both Mike and myself as we hadn't done well in the first election. We didn't catch the error until after the Shadow Cabinet phase of the second turn, which hurt me quite a bit. We ended up playing the cards after the Shadow Cabinet phase, but the damage was done to me trying to kill Matt and Chuck's stealing of that election with their coalition.
To make things worse, I'd bid for table position not realizing that I could be beat by a coalition, so there was more money wasted. In the third turn, I learned that you could have multiple coalitions, which came a little late in the game as well. I suspect that this game is very harsh to new players, as almost every decision you make ties in to a future decision or situation later on, and not having a thorough understanding of how everything fits together can produce quite a bit pain. I ended up being in strong position to win a couple of elections early, only to get beat because I didn't understand the coalition rules as well as I might have.
The capper was when I had the chance to change the popular opinion in the third election, and it was strongly suggested that I make a particular play that hurt me, but that also hurt Matt. When all was said and done, I ended up with 48 votes instead of 50, costing me 3 seats, which wouldn't have happened had I just left the opinion as it had been originally. The person suggesting the move had also missed the implications, but it's an object lesson as to how tightly built this game is. Clearly not a game for wimps!
That was the end of my whining for the game, fortunately. While I didn't do particularly well in the fourth election, I was well placed to finally win the fifth and final election, which also was for the most seats of any election in the game (36, which is relatively small compared to the 80 you can get in Berlin). I also did quite well in matching the National Opinion, but my population sucked and Matt ended up winning the game by a good 50 points over me. Chuck came in third 20 points behind me, with Mike trailing another 50 points behind him. A big part of Matt's success was adding 12 population early on, which gave him an extra $24,000 to work with over the course of the game (although most of us had bumped up $4 or $8 at start). He ended with well over 50 population, quite a large amount.
I really like this game, although it's clearly not the kind of game you pull out on a whim. It requires constant attention to not only what is going on in the various states, but also on the National Opinon board and what your neighbor's platforms are. Given that this element is the one component quality disaster in the game, the game is actually made more of a brain drain that it might otherwise have been. It's bad enough that Valley Games should seriously consider providing replacement cards for these two decks, they are that bad.
The game, however, rewards thinking ahead and managing a complex situation. There are a few luck elements - what cards you draw to adjust your platform (which has been improved from the original game), how well you roll when you take external money (or not) and decline to release opinion polls, and whether or not you get the opinion poll you are hoping for. However, the opinion poll comes under the heading of "you knew the job was dangerous when you took it" as is the external money mechanism. Of all of these luck factors, I could see the platform card draws as having the ability to sink a game without any ability for a player to recover, although it would have to be a pretty poor set of draws. A longer game would tend to average out the results from such pulls, and create more change over time to the national mood, so I suspect the short game is only really valuable if time is an issue or if you are playing a learning game (as we did).
Overall, I'm looking forward to another playing of this game, preferably soon to lock in the many (painful) lessons learned in my first game. Our playing time, including my initial 'splainin', took about 3.5 hours, and we had very few rules questions that couldn't be answered quickly (although I did have very scary moment when I thought that there might be *four* possible positions on an issue rather than just two, but it was just the bad components).
I've said it twice, I'll say it once more - Valley Games, you blew it big time on the Popular Opinion and Party Platform cards, and you should fix this problem. I know you are a small publisher, but these are critical components that have a huge effect on the game. It is far too easy for a player to confuse two of these symbols and make a game-ruining decision. Do the right thing and at least make replacement cards available at your cost. Otherwise, the game is a classic, so treat it with the respect it deserves.
Bulge - Second Impressions
I did an out of the box review on the new Axis and Allies title, Battle of the Bulge, last week, and got a chance to play this with Jesse a few days later. This was Jesse's first game, and I had him play the Germans so he could get a good sense of how the game plays as he'll probably be demo'ing it to customers at his store in the future. Jesse won on turn five when he took Liege, and in fact had several chances to beat me that turn. However, we felt that had I held out that the Allies would almost certainly have won, so we both came away feeling the game was close.
Some thoughts after getting in a second playing:
o This is going to be my favorite A&A *game* in the series. I still hold that the game does not do enough to try to tackle the difficult nut of encouraging the Germans to do what they were trying to do historically, and for that reason there may be times when I pull out Tigers in the Mist instead of this game. However, this may be the best introductory wargame out there, nothing else does such a great job of introducing basic concepts in such an appealing package.
o A closer look at the VP spaces on the board show that the cluster of towns in the north leading to Liege and the area around Bastogne are the critical spaces to prevent a German victory, just as they were historically (St. Vith is doomed, but may also help the Allies to hold out as long as possible). As such, we think that the Allies may have a better chance of winning by allowing German penetration after making these areas hedgehogs with strong defenses. ZOC prevents supply from reaching the panzers racing ahead, and the rules about stopping when entering uncontrolled towns prevent them from running amok in the Allies backfield. I may try this strategy out in a solo attempt in the near future. In other words, the Allies *force* the Bulge, which is historical. The lack of defensive terrain in the north may make this harder, but it's worth a shot.
o I still have issues with the counter mix, the difficulties of tracking movement, and some of the vaguaries of the ruleset. However, none of these affected our enjoyment of the game. This is one I definitely want to play again in the near future!
I wonder what Avalon Hill will do for it's next A&A game now that they've exhausted all of the "interesting" ETO battles involving Americans? I'd love to see a Guadalcanal game, which would allow the game to continue with the supply issue while tackling a subject that has been problematic for traditional wargame designers.
Some thoughts after getting in a second playing:
o This is going to be my favorite A&A *game* in the series. I still hold that the game does not do enough to try to tackle the difficult nut of encouraging the Germans to do what they were trying to do historically, and for that reason there may be times when I pull out Tigers in the Mist instead of this game. However, this may be the best introductory wargame out there, nothing else does such a great job of introducing basic concepts in such an appealing package.
o A closer look at the VP spaces on the board show that the cluster of towns in the north leading to Liege and the area around Bastogne are the critical spaces to prevent a German victory, just as they were historically (St. Vith is doomed, but may also help the Allies to hold out as long as possible). As such, we think that the Allies may have a better chance of winning by allowing German penetration after making these areas hedgehogs with strong defenses. ZOC prevents supply from reaching the panzers racing ahead, and the rules about stopping when entering uncontrolled towns prevent them from running amok in the Allies backfield. I may try this strategy out in a solo attempt in the near future. In other words, the Allies *force* the Bulge, which is historical. The lack of defensive terrain in the north may make this harder, but it's worth a shot.
o I still have issues with the counter mix, the difficulties of tracking movement, and some of the vaguaries of the ruleset. However, none of these affected our enjoyment of the game. This is one I definitely want to play again in the near future!
I wonder what Avalon Hill will do for it's next A&A game now that they've exhausted all of the "interesting" ETO battles involving Americans? I'd love to see a Guadalcanal game, which would allow the game to continue with the supply issue while tackling a subject that has been problematic for traditional wargame designers.
CenTu Session, 12/5/06
Wow, what a busy gaming week. Within a five day period, I got in something like 10 hours of gaming, which is a lot for me when I'm not at Sunriver.
First up was our regular Central Tuesday session, this week at Matt's. Seven of us showed up to do some quality gaming - Dave, Jim, Matt, Liz, Alex, Chuck, and myself.
Our first division saw Matt, Liz, Chuck, and me playing Around the World in 80 Days (80 Days), with Alex, Jim, and Dave playing a couple of games of San Juan. Alex apparently smacked the others around in both games.
In our game, Matt started out racing ahead in terms of position but lagging behind in terms of actual days travelled. Chuck, always Mr. Efficiency, began by going for the "last in" bonuses. Me, I tried to be as cheap as possible, within reason. In the end this strategy paid off, as I was the only person to beat 80 days, but just barely. Going into the last couple of turns I was short a rail card, and had set myself up as the start player, but was out of gold to draw extra cards if necessary. Unfortunately, no rail cards came up, and I was not only delayed one turn, but an extra day as Matt had gone in first (with a trip time of 105 days!). A Storm didn't help either, but I was able to sneak in just under the wire on the final turn for the win.
80 Days is becoming one of my favorite light four-player games - the various elements all go together to really evoke the theme, and the days vs position mechanism is simply genius. There's great tension, enough planning and strategy to make you at least partially the master of your own destiny, and even a couple of press your luck elements (which I always like). It's really a shame that the game was so poorly packaged, I think it would have gotten better sales, even at the same price point, in a Puerto Rico sized box, but I'm sure *someone* had a good reason to do box a compact game in an airplane hangar.
We all finished up about the same time, so we shuffled personnel. Chuck, Matt, and Dave played San Marco, which I'm starting to regret having sold a year ago, although I suspect the game is still available. Matt was the winner in that game.
Meanwhile, I taught, believe it or not, Samurai to Alex, Liz, and Jim. This game holds a special place in my heart, as it was the first Euro I really played right after my first mega-buy from Funagain back in the day when Funagain was worth buying from and every game that came out was novel. In fact, my opponent at the time was a 15 year old Alex, who had accompanied me to the store and was more than a bit concerned that my wife Mel might have a negative reaction to me coming home with 20 games.
Alex didn't really remember anything about the game (other than playing it), and Liz and Jim had never played, so I went over the rules, reminding people of various rules as we went. I even went so far as to make sub-optimal plays early to demonstrate specific moves you could make. We had a very strange piece placement early, with Buddhas clumped in the north. We also played with random tile draws at the start to allow everyone to learn how the various tiles worked.
I started out collecting paddies and buddhas, and initially this worked well. However, the four-player game plays hell with any strategy one may have, and this game was no exception. I set myself up rather nicely for at least a couple of buddhas in the north, only to see almost all of them get snatched up by others. At the end of the game, my 3 Samurai was nicely positioned, but never netted a piece before Liz ended the game. An ill-advised move, as it turned out, as neither she nor I had any majorities. In the end, Jim won the last tie-breaker by a single piece over Alex.
Perhaps the slowest game of Samurai I've ever played (90 minutes including 'splainin'), but worth it to teach this true classic.
Thanks for hosting, Matt!
First up was our regular Central Tuesday session, this week at Matt's. Seven of us showed up to do some quality gaming - Dave, Jim, Matt, Liz, Alex, Chuck, and myself.
Our first division saw Matt, Liz, Chuck, and me playing Around the World in 80 Days (80 Days), with Alex, Jim, and Dave playing a couple of games of San Juan. Alex apparently smacked the others around in both games.
In our game, Matt started out racing ahead in terms of position but lagging behind in terms of actual days travelled. Chuck, always Mr. Efficiency, began by going for the "last in" bonuses. Me, I tried to be as cheap as possible, within reason. In the end this strategy paid off, as I was the only person to beat 80 days, but just barely. Going into the last couple of turns I was short a rail card, and had set myself up as the start player, but was out of gold to draw extra cards if necessary. Unfortunately, no rail cards came up, and I was not only delayed one turn, but an extra day as Matt had gone in first (with a trip time of 105 days!). A Storm didn't help either, but I was able to sneak in just under the wire on the final turn for the win.
80 Days is becoming one of my favorite light four-player games - the various elements all go together to really evoke the theme, and the days vs position mechanism is simply genius. There's great tension, enough planning and strategy to make you at least partially the master of your own destiny, and even a couple of press your luck elements (which I always like). It's really a shame that the game was so poorly packaged, I think it would have gotten better sales, even at the same price point, in a Puerto Rico sized box, but I'm sure *someone* had a good reason to do box a compact game in an airplane hangar.
We all finished up about the same time, so we shuffled personnel. Chuck, Matt, and Dave played San Marco, which I'm starting to regret having sold a year ago, although I suspect the game is still available. Matt was the winner in that game.
Meanwhile, I taught, believe it or not, Samurai to Alex, Liz, and Jim. This game holds a special place in my heart, as it was the first Euro I really played right after my first mega-buy from Funagain back in the day when Funagain was worth buying from and every game that came out was novel. In fact, my opponent at the time was a 15 year old Alex, who had accompanied me to the store and was more than a bit concerned that my wife Mel might have a negative reaction to me coming home with 20 games.
Alex didn't really remember anything about the game (other than playing it), and Liz and Jim had never played, so I went over the rules, reminding people of various rules as we went. I even went so far as to make sub-optimal plays early to demonstrate specific moves you could make. We had a very strange piece placement early, with Buddhas clumped in the north. We also played with random tile draws at the start to allow everyone to learn how the various tiles worked.
I started out collecting paddies and buddhas, and initially this worked well. However, the four-player game plays hell with any strategy one may have, and this game was no exception. I set myself up rather nicely for at least a couple of buddhas in the north, only to see almost all of them get snatched up by others. At the end of the game, my 3 Samurai was nicely positioned, but never netted a piece before Liz ended the game. An ill-advised move, as it turned out, as neither she nor I had any majorities. In the end, Jim won the last tie-breaker by a single piece over Alex.
Perhaps the slowest game of Samurai I've ever played (90 minutes including 'splainin'), but worth it to teach this true classic.
Thanks for hosting, Matt!
Sunday, December 03, 2006
A&A: Battle of the Bulge - First Impressions
Picked this game up at Jesse's new Hobbytown store last week, and it was the first game of the bunch to get a tryout in solo play. Verdict is somewhat mixed, but overall positive.
First, components. Avalon Hill seems to manage to do both a great and a miserable job on components in every game they've done since they were Borged. In Vegas Showdown, it was the crappy player mats and the lack of a marker to track non-room oriented Fame. In Bulge, there are a few problems. First is the standard "divided box", which is completely useless as the dividers don't manage to reach the bottom of the box. Since many of the components are flat (chips, supply markers), these end up sliding around all over the place. Second is the color registration of the board, which I freely admit is supposed to look like it's snowy, but ends up making it difficult to see the individual hexes. Third is the poor figure mix, which is just crazy. There are far too many artillery units in every nationality (four for the Brits when they use exactly one), while there are arguably not enough infantry markers. The turns are color coded, so it is easy to lose track of which units come in on which turns if a turn is skipped on the card (there are numbers but no notation that indicates no reinforcements on an intermediate turn). Finally, the 5 point supply markers are difficult to distinguish from the 1 point markers, and there are so few in the game it wouldn't have taken much to make them a bit larger.
If you think I'm being harsh about the components right off, keep in mind that there's a very good argument that Avalon Hill games are *all* about the components. People play A&A because you have lots of little army men spread out around the board, not because it's a great game. I know there are a lot of fans, but I think that if you replaced all of those units with your standard wargame counters that it would be much less successful. With the resources of Hasbro behind them, there is simply no excuse to do this poorly. The pieces are nice, they all correspond to either US or German weapons (except the Brit aircraft, oddly, and there is no differentiation in the game between US/UK), and the board is, unusually for an A&A game, not overly crowded.
I bought this thinking that it would be quite a bit like the other A&A game I like in the series, D-Day. The "battle" games feel a lot more like they are actually trying to duplicate a historical struggle, unlike Europe or Pacific which feel more like they are loosely themed on WWII. Bulge definitely meets this criterion, but does it in a much different manner than D-Day. To start with, the game is hex-based rather than area-based like every other A&A game (OK, the collectible minis game is hex-based, but let's pretend it's related in name only). There are zones of control, for God's sake. If there was ever an "entry" game to try to bridge the gap between wargames and euros, this may be it.
As for the historical aspects of the conflict, this game does a pretty good job of simulating them. The road net through the Ardennes is critical, as is (gasp!) supply, and even exploitation by armor. Of all of the A&A games, I feel this one best captures the strengths and weaknesses of every arm of the military. Artillery is strongest (after bombers), but has the most limitations on movement. Armor can exploit breakthroughs, but it costs precious supply to do so. Infantry is critical for protecting the more powerful and/or vulnerable elements of a force, but are weak on the attack. Trucks can get your slow units and supplies up to the front, but it's important to use them well or risk losing them, sometimes to the other side. What's most surprising is that these elements are all incorporated in a fairly elegant way.
The sequence of play is very straightforward, but a bit reversed from the usual IGO/YUGO system common in wargames. First is the air phase, which is heavily abstracted - you have the same air units every turn, at least once the weather clears up on turn 5. Second is combat, which (aside from the first turn, which is all Germans) is done on a hex-by-hex basis with each side choosing which neighboring hexes to attack and spending supply to do it, flipping the supply token over to show which hex is attacking which. This is a very elegant mechanism, and forces the players to choose which attacks should take precedence. Since the defender gets no "return fire", sequencing can be important. Third is movement/reinforcement, which also requires supply, and is again done on a hex-by-hex basis that *almost* works. Movement is all Axis units first, so it can be tough for the Allies to bolster a position easily, although the Allies do get the benefit of responding. Finally, the front line is moved forward (and this is a useful element, it's not just there for people who can't remember which of the 10 front line hexes belong to who), new VP are totalled, and stacking is enforced.
Combat is a system I've never seen before, but it's a winner. I'll try to explain it verbally, but to be honest you won't get it until you have it demonstrated to you, and then you'll be amazed that that's all there is to it. The attacker rolls a number of dice based on the attacking units. There are no terrain benefits (rivers only affect movement, towns only affect forward projection of German force), so things are very simple - one die per infantry, two per tank, three per artillery. Artillery was a deciding factor in the battle, so this is one of the historically accurate elements of the game. Every 6 or lower is a hit, but it's not quite that simple. Once you've removed the non-hit dice, you then start assigning hits to the defending elements based on the numbers you did roll.
This is best explained with an example. Let's say that the defender has two infantry, one tank, one artillery, and a bunch of supply markers. In the order given above, dice are assigned to the various units based on the number showing on each die. In this example, let's say the attacker rolled six hits - 1, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6. The 1 is assigned to the first infantry, the three to the tank, the fours to the artillery, the five to supply, and the six wraps around to the first infantry unit. For all but trucks and supply, one hit requires a retreat, two eliminates the unit. As such, in this case, there are two hits on the first infantry, one on the tank, two on the artillery, and one to supply. The first infantry unit is eliminated, as is the artillery. The tank, with one hit, is forced to retreat, and one supply marker is eliminated. Again, the defenders don't respond, they must attack on their turn and expend supply to do so.
Since only sixes or less hit, there are other rules that take effect if there are more than six units in a hex, although trucks and supply, regardless of how many are in the space, will only get a single "slot" assignment. To make tracking this easy, there are six tracks that slide out from under the side of the board. When I was first looking at the game, this seemed like a crutch for the mechanism-challenged, but it really is an amazingly effective system. The result is that you can withstand even an overwhelming attack with some luck, but you want to have multiple units in the space to do so. Trying to do this as the Allies is a major challenge.
Movement is a bit more of a bugaboo. You enable a space for movement by expending supply, but it can be tricky to keep track of who has moved already. Trucks and tanks can use the road net to move as far as they'd like, but have to stay on the road (tanks may instead move one space not using the net, the two types can't be combined). Tanks can also "blitz" by spending an extra supply to get a second move. Zones of control are sticky, so this can be handy for penetrating a porous line. Trucks can pick up units and bring supply from off-board, although on-board units have to pay supply to be picked up (and trucks themselves don't require supply to move). The other problem is that the rules say that all on-board units move first, although it's pretty clear that you can use the trucks that aren't in ZOCs to bring on supply and units (although this isn't explicit in the rules).
The biggest problem is that the Allies can't bring on reinforcements behind the front line, meaning the battle has no real reason to form a bulge. In fact, it's to the German's benefit to press forward along the entire board rather than try to break out across the Meuse River, as was the historic goal. If there's a flaw in the game, this is it. While some of the Meuse cities have high VP amounts, they aren't that much higher than many of the other cities on the board (5 points vs 3 or 4), so why make a big push in the center with vulnerable flanks? Of course, it's an A&A title, so I may be hoping for more than I should, but given the general desire to fit the game to history, I find this a bit mystifying.
In the final phase, the front line is moved forward to mark German penetration. Empty hexes to the east are included, so long as they don't have cities (even a single supply unit will prevent control). While this may seem a bit specious, there's a good reason to even have a marked front line - the Allies can use supply in a space that Germans have advanced into for movement as long as they are adjacent to that hex. The same goes for trucks that have been captured, although they aren't allowed to move for either side. The front line also restricts which hexes Allied reinforcements can enter from, which is occasionally a factor. The Germans then get points for all of the hexes behind the line. Once they hit 24, they win.
So what works? The combat system, for one, makes for accurate but tough-to-predict results. The "I pick one attack, you pick one" element adds a lot of tension. The way supply is used is brilliant, and is perhaps the best element of the game (in fact, the box lid calls it a "battle of supply" among other things). Game play is brisk, and there is little reason to be fussy about most things (such as exactly what units to have in a space, so long as you have a couple of infantry and tanks the supply, trucks, and arty are relatively safe). Aircraft are appropriately abstracted, and are best used in their historical roles (interdiction, with some assault assistance for the Germans). My favorite missing mechanism from the "strategic" games - no economy, just set reinforcements.
What doesn't work? No motivation to actually form a Bulge, the lack of flanks off-board (most wargames on the subject at least require garrisoning forces on the edges of the board), no real motivation to concentrate attacks (three supply "depots" across the board seems to get it done for most purposes). Also, because the rules mention aircraft before combat, the writers assume players will skip this section when learning the game and don't explain combat fully. There are a few rules ambiguities, and a few non-ambiguities that get cleared up when you think about it a bit - can retreated units attack from a new hex? A: No, because they can't retreat into a zone of control. And, of course, some component issues.
All in all, Avalon Hill has made a good introductory wargame that introduces some critical elements used in more advanced designs. Unlike the D-Day game, however, the game isn't as successful in demonstrating what the Germans were actually trying to do.
One last nit: The box cover describes the battle as "one of the most brutal in WWII". Please. It may have been the most brutal the US was involved in in Western Europe (although some of the battles in Italy such as Anzio and Monte Cassino were probably more 'brutal" depending upon how you define the term, and Kasserine certainly wasn't fun for the US by anyone's definition). Without question, the entire war on the Eastern Front was more brutal, and the various island invasions in the Pacific were all "brutal". Even the Omaha beach landings were probably more "brutal" in a sense, although very short. Admittedly, the siege of Bastogne was 'brutal", but when the entire offensive lasted a little more than a week, it's hard to take this sort of thing seriously. American revisionism wins again - it is a sad fact that wargames that involve the US (ACW and WWII being at the top of the list) sell much much better than non-US involvement, even more than the Eastern Front and North Africa. Americans seem to think that our history is the only one that matters, and that is an abject failure of our educational system. Sigh.
Regardless, this is a title worth checking out if you don't mind a glaring historical shortcoming and want a good light wargame that can act as an introduction to more sophisticated titles.
First, components. Avalon Hill seems to manage to do both a great and a miserable job on components in every game they've done since they were Borged. In Vegas Showdown, it was the crappy player mats and the lack of a marker to track non-room oriented Fame. In Bulge, there are a few problems. First is the standard "divided box", which is completely useless as the dividers don't manage to reach the bottom of the box. Since many of the components are flat (chips, supply markers), these end up sliding around all over the place. Second is the color registration of the board, which I freely admit is supposed to look like it's snowy, but ends up making it difficult to see the individual hexes. Third is the poor figure mix, which is just crazy. There are far too many artillery units in every nationality (four for the Brits when they use exactly one), while there are arguably not enough infantry markers. The turns are color coded, so it is easy to lose track of which units come in on which turns if a turn is skipped on the card (there are numbers but no notation that indicates no reinforcements on an intermediate turn). Finally, the 5 point supply markers are difficult to distinguish from the 1 point markers, and there are so few in the game it wouldn't have taken much to make them a bit larger.
If you think I'm being harsh about the components right off, keep in mind that there's a very good argument that Avalon Hill games are *all* about the components. People play A&A because you have lots of little army men spread out around the board, not because it's a great game. I know there are a lot of fans, but I think that if you replaced all of those units with your standard wargame counters that it would be much less successful. With the resources of Hasbro behind them, there is simply no excuse to do this poorly. The pieces are nice, they all correspond to either US or German weapons (except the Brit aircraft, oddly, and there is no differentiation in the game between US/UK), and the board is, unusually for an A&A game, not overly crowded.
I bought this thinking that it would be quite a bit like the other A&A game I like in the series, D-Day. The "battle" games feel a lot more like they are actually trying to duplicate a historical struggle, unlike Europe or Pacific which feel more like they are loosely themed on WWII. Bulge definitely meets this criterion, but does it in a much different manner than D-Day. To start with, the game is hex-based rather than area-based like every other A&A game (OK, the collectible minis game is hex-based, but let's pretend it's related in name only). There are zones of control, for God's sake. If there was ever an "entry" game to try to bridge the gap between wargames and euros, this may be it.
As for the historical aspects of the conflict, this game does a pretty good job of simulating them. The road net through the Ardennes is critical, as is (gasp!) supply, and even exploitation by armor. Of all of the A&A games, I feel this one best captures the strengths and weaknesses of every arm of the military. Artillery is strongest (after bombers), but has the most limitations on movement. Armor can exploit breakthroughs, but it costs precious supply to do so. Infantry is critical for protecting the more powerful and/or vulnerable elements of a force, but are weak on the attack. Trucks can get your slow units and supplies up to the front, but it's important to use them well or risk losing them, sometimes to the other side. What's most surprising is that these elements are all incorporated in a fairly elegant way.
The sequence of play is very straightforward, but a bit reversed from the usual IGO/YUGO system common in wargames. First is the air phase, which is heavily abstracted - you have the same air units every turn, at least once the weather clears up on turn 5. Second is combat, which (aside from the first turn, which is all Germans) is done on a hex-by-hex basis with each side choosing which neighboring hexes to attack and spending supply to do it, flipping the supply token over to show which hex is attacking which. This is a very elegant mechanism, and forces the players to choose which attacks should take precedence. Since the defender gets no "return fire", sequencing can be important. Third is movement/reinforcement, which also requires supply, and is again done on a hex-by-hex basis that *almost* works. Movement is all Axis units first, so it can be tough for the Allies to bolster a position easily, although the Allies do get the benefit of responding. Finally, the front line is moved forward (and this is a useful element, it's not just there for people who can't remember which of the 10 front line hexes belong to who), new VP are totalled, and stacking is enforced.
Combat is a system I've never seen before, but it's a winner. I'll try to explain it verbally, but to be honest you won't get it until you have it demonstrated to you, and then you'll be amazed that that's all there is to it. The attacker rolls a number of dice based on the attacking units. There are no terrain benefits (rivers only affect movement, towns only affect forward projection of German force), so things are very simple - one die per infantry, two per tank, three per artillery. Artillery was a deciding factor in the battle, so this is one of the historically accurate elements of the game. Every 6 or lower is a hit, but it's not quite that simple. Once you've removed the non-hit dice, you then start assigning hits to the defending elements based on the numbers you did roll.
This is best explained with an example. Let's say that the defender has two infantry, one tank, one artillery, and a bunch of supply markers. In the order given above, dice are assigned to the various units based on the number showing on each die. In this example, let's say the attacker rolled six hits - 1, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6. The 1 is assigned to the first infantry, the three to the tank, the fours to the artillery, the five to supply, and the six wraps around to the first infantry unit. For all but trucks and supply, one hit requires a retreat, two eliminates the unit. As such, in this case, there are two hits on the first infantry, one on the tank, two on the artillery, and one to supply. The first infantry unit is eliminated, as is the artillery. The tank, with one hit, is forced to retreat, and one supply marker is eliminated. Again, the defenders don't respond, they must attack on their turn and expend supply to do so.
Since only sixes or less hit, there are other rules that take effect if there are more than six units in a hex, although trucks and supply, regardless of how many are in the space, will only get a single "slot" assignment. To make tracking this easy, there are six tracks that slide out from under the side of the board. When I was first looking at the game, this seemed like a crutch for the mechanism-challenged, but it really is an amazingly effective system. The result is that you can withstand even an overwhelming attack with some luck, but you want to have multiple units in the space to do so. Trying to do this as the Allies is a major challenge.
Movement is a bit more of a bugaboo. You enable a space for movement by expending supply, but it can be tricky to keep track of who has moved already. Trucks and tanks can use the road net to move as far as they'd like, but have to stay on the road (tanks may instead move one space not using the net, the two types can't be combined). Tanks can also "blitz" by spending an extra supply to get a second move. Zones of control are sticky, so this can be handy for penetrating a porous line. Trucks can pick up units and bring supply from off-board, although on-board units have to pay supply to be picked up (and trucks themselves don't require supply to move). The other problem is that the rules say that all on-board units move first, although it's pretty clear that you can use the trucks that aren't in ZOCs to bring on supply and units (although this isn't explicit in the rules).
The biggest problem is that the Allies can't bring on reinforcements behind the front line, meaning the battle has no real reason to form a bulge. In fact, it's to the German's benefit to press forward along the entire board rather than try to break out across the Meuse River, as was the historic goal. If there's a flaw in the game, this is it. While some of the Meuse cities have high VP amounts, they aren't that much higher than many of the other cities on the board (5 points vs 3 or 4), so why make a big push in the center with vulnerable flanks? Of course, it's an A&A title, so I may be hoping for more than I should, but given the general desire to fit the game to history, I find this a bit mystifying.
In the final phase, the front line is moved forward to mark German penetration. Empty hexes to the east are included, so long as they don't have cities (even a single supply unit will prevent control). While this may seem a bit specious, there's a good reason to even have a marked front line - the Allies can use supply in a space that Germans have advanced into for movement as long as they are adjacent to that hex. The same goes for trucks that have been captured, although they aren't allowed to move for either side. The front line also restricts which hexes Allied reinforcements can enter from, which is occasionally a factor. The Germans then get points for all of the hexes behind the line. Once they hit 24, they win.
So what works? The combat system, for one, makes for accurate but tough-to-predict results. The "I pick one attack, you pick one" element adds a lot of tension. The way supply is used is brilliant, and is perhaps the best element of the game (in fact, the box lid calls it a "battle of supply" among other things). Game play is brisk, and there is little reason to be fussy about most things (such as exactly what units to have in a space, so long as you have a couple of infantry and tanks the supply, trucks, and arty are relatively safe). Aircraft are appropriately abstracted, and are best used in their historical roles (interdiction, with some assault assistance for the Germans). My favorite missing mechanism from the "strategic" games - no economy, just set reinforcements.
What doesn't work? No motivation to actually form a Bulge, the lack of flanks off-board (most wargames on the subject at least require garrisoning forces on the edges of the board), no real motivation to concentrate attacks (three supply "depots" across the board seems to get it done for most purposes). Also, because the rules mention aircraft before combat, the writers assume players will skip this section when learning the game and don't explain combat fully. There are a few rules ambiguities, and a few non-ambiguities that get cleared up when you think about it a bit - can retreated units attack from a new hex? A: No, because they can't retreat into a zone of control. And, of course, some component issues.
All in all, Avalon Hill has made a good introductory wargame that introduces some critical elements used in more advanced designs. Unlike the D-Day game, however, the game isn't as successful in demonstrating what the Germans were actually trying to do.
One last nit: The box cover describes the battle as "one of the most brutal in WWII". Please. It may have been the most brutal the US was involved in in Western Europe (although some of the battles in Italy such as Anzio and Monte Cassino were probably more 'brutal" depending upon how you define the term, and Kasserine certainly wasn't fun for the US by anyone's definition). Without question, the entire war on the Eastern Front was more brutal, and the various island invasions in the Pacific were all "brutal". Even the Omaha beach landings were probably more "brutal" in a sense, although very short. Admittedly, the siege of Bastogne was 'brutal", but when the entire offensive lasted a little more than a week, it's hard to take this sort of thing seriously. American revisionism wins again - it is a sad fact that wargames that involve the US (ACW and WWII being at the top of the list) sell much much better than non-US involvement, even more than the Eastern Front and North Africa. Americans seem to think that our history is the only one that matters, and that is an abject failure of our educational system. Sigh.
Regardless, this is a title worth checking out if you don't mind a glaring historical shortcoming and want a good light wargame that can act as an introduction to more sophisticated titles.
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