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.
Monday, November 07, 2011
BottosCon 2011, Day 2
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.
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
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.
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.
Tuesday, November 01, 2011
Prep For BottosCon
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.
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.
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Sleeve If You Have To, Sleeve If You Need To, The Actual Post
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.
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.
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