I am not and have never been in my country's military. While my uncle served as a PBY pilot in WW2, he didn't like to talk about it. My mother's second husband (hard to call someone a "stepfather" when you are in your 40's), and he not only served in the Pacific but also as a brigadier general in the Army Reserves. My "son-in-law"s brother recently mustered out of the Marines after serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. My good friend Chris served in the Air Force for some time. I had many friends in college who were part of the ROTC program.
Beyond that, I have little contact with those in the military. My uncle and "stepfather" are both gone, but from old age and not from combat.
That is why it is so important for me, and those like me who are not part of the minuscule percentage of the population in the US that does serve in the armed forces, to thank those who have gone before and sacrificed their lives for their country and for the citizens of this country. I do not always agree with the choices the leaders of my country make, and in some cases I consider them close to criminal, but there is no question that those who serve do so at the risk of their lives, from training accidents to hot combat zones and they do so because they serve, not because they always agree with me or their leadership. They do it because they understand that the idea of the United States of America is bigger than me, bigger than our leaders, bigger than themselves.
Thank you. Your sacrifices, whether it be in disruption to your lives, your health, your psyche, or your life itself, does not go unnoticed and unappreciated. May you remember that throughout the year, not just on this one day.
Monday, May 30, 2011
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
WBC West 2011 - Wrap Up
Chuck and I began WBC West back in 2003 (I think) after sitting on a tarmac for a few hours in Baltimore waiting for weather delays to clear out on the way home from the real WBC in 2002. While we were waiting, Chuck said that perhaps we'd have just as much fun going to Sunriver for a few days and wargaming there, and WBC West was born. It was a pretty sparsely attended affair for the first couple of years, with no more than two to four people present, and only four full days. Eventually it grew to a full week, and this year for the first time we had eight gamers present and ready to go the first full day of the event (albeit by the evening), where normally we will have four or five by that time at most.
These kinds of numbers present us with some logistical issues, mainly where the hell everyone sleeps. You can fit seven people (more if there are SOs present) if people are willing to take couches in my family's place, so with eleven we had to rent an additional house, which was subsidized by Chuck and myself. Ken has a place out there too, but I am loathe to ask someone for the use of their house as it tends to make me look like an asshole and puts them in the position of feeling obligated to attend even if things go horribly horribly wrong (in my case, my nephew Alex can always take over hosting for me if necessary). However, this year Ken, who has a new job, really wasn't able to participate, but he did come out and work from his house but we had already rented a second house and he had some friends stopping by anyway to stay one or two nights. Next year, Ken thinks he can commit to being present and putting up a few people (and having a few games run at his house as well, more on that later).
Amazingly, we were able to find space for ten people to game through the entire week. At one point we had one game in the nook, two on the long dining table, one on a card table adjacent, and another on a corner table in the loft. Kind of crazy, but it's nice to have everyone in the same space. If there was a problem, it was in keeping the kitchen clean. That requires a certain amount of leadership on my part, and I just never got around to making a formal announcement so my bad there, although I suspect I have a higher level of cleanliness than most other people when it comes to kitchens.
Here's the thing - If even two more people come next year than this year, we will be able to sleep everyone in a bed (probably), but we won't have enough space to fit everyone on a table. If we break up the group into two spaces for gaming, that means that the "satellite" group has to move to a house that doesn't have their drinks, their lunch, their snacks and their stuff present, and there is a chance that they will have that house all to themselves, which in most people's minds didn't seem to be a good thing.
Here's a breakdown of the sorts of things that I got from people regarding what they value about the retreat and what they'd like to see in the future:
o Longer games, up to four or five days (or even the entire week) in some cases. That means finding committed space that we don't need the rest of the week, which includes the lighter evening games. Like last year, we did have one two-day game run, but it was in the nook and with Chuck and Mike (Ardennes '44). At the same time, not everyone wants a longer game.
o Fun atmosphere. For most, that means a certain number of people in a given space to lend more of a party vibe.
o Well stocked house. Drinks, snacks, extra dice, gaming supplies such as dice towers and poster frames or plexi. At a rental, all of these things must be brought in from the central location. You could include tunage in this list.
o Comfortable sleeping quarters. People don't mind sharing a room for a week, but they do want a bed that doesn't include someone grinding coffee beans in your ear in the morning because there's no wall between you and the grinder.
Interestingly, I had the people who wanted longer games also suggesting that we limit participation, which I felt was a false dichotomy. If you want to play a game for four or five days, you really are going to need a dedicated space, something that we can't really do in my house. There were suggestions to set up tables in bedrooms, but then all you've done is make the supplies handy, and that can be managed relatively easily by simply remembering to take supplies with you when you play at a satellite house. I think we could even set up webcams between the two houses, as most places have wi-fi, and keep the vibe going. Better to have the long game set up at a satellite location so that the core house can host evening games, and more people makes it easier to justify the satellite location.
My personal philosophy is one of inclusion - I really don't want to be in a position where I have to decide if one person can't go because there's an odd number, or because we're tight on tables. Those are very solvable problems and the thought of denying someone some of our WBC West goodness just doesn't sit right with me at an elemental level. If anything, I'd like to see this grow a bit over time - keep it invite only, so it's only people who fit into the general group gestalt (which I see as the biggest asset of WBC West), but expand it over time. The fact that Alex and his friend Dan came out and played a ton of games that were new to them (especially Dan, who took to wargaming like me to bourbon) was worth any extra pain that having extra people might have caused, and it didn't cause much.
In fact, there are several people who I'd have loved to have seen at this retreat who were unable to attend for personal or work reasons. I could see this group getting up to 15 or 16 gamers easily without going outside of wargamers I already know and play against. At that point, we're probably talking my house, Ken's house, and maybe one more for a few nights, depending upon when people come out, and probably gaming in two if not three houses. I think the more likely number is 12 gamers, which would have come close to taking every bed we had in the two houses we did have.
One thing that I noticed this year was that it was harder for people to get scheduled up quite as well as in the past, but there were two issues present in this case. One was Doug and Mimi being out of town for a month up to about two weeks before the retreat, making it hard to nail him down for what games he'd play when. The other was Dan's unfamiliarity with the pool of games, meaning that he had to rely on others to choose games to play. That worked out, but it required a little prodding. I don't think either of these was a huge issue or one that will carry over if there are more people involved, and the newer players understand well why we need to schedule games ahead of time, at least those we play during the day. The fact remains that when you add people into an event, the complexity both stays constant (the "startup" costs) and goes up exponentially (the "support" costs). To my mind, the startup costs have been taken care of and we have an effective process for everything from games played to providing dinner. The trick will be in determining the support costs in the face of uncertain but almost certainly increasing attendance numbers. Those who came earlier this year had a great time and I suspect will make every attempt to continue to do so, and those who came later will make an effort to come earlier.
The biggest adjustment will be in terms of learning to anticipate one's own supply needs when using a satellite house. It would be great to have one close by, preferably within 100 feet as the gamer walks, but a shift in mindset will still be necessary. I believe strongly in continuous improvement - examining how effective a system is and deciding what needs fixing and what would augment that system. That means that I take some small risks by trying out new ideas and seeing how they work. While it is still very early, I strongly suspect that next year we will be trying out the idea of satellite houses for not only sleeping, but gaming as well. Having someone take on a long-term game would help in that effort, and I don't think I'll have too much trouble finding people to do that (although it won't be me - I like to play a lot of games against a lot of opponents if possible). Depending on the game, it may even be possible to have people drop in and out of the long game as long as there are two consistent generals playing.
Of course, I'll also want to have more conversations with the stakeholders to get as clear a picture as I can, but in general we have a strong event with a strong set of attendees and I am extremely confident that we can withstand a certain amount of experimentation as we move forward. At the same time, I have no intention of messing with our core values - good games, good people, good fun. That means a continued vetting of people who attend, a commitment to preserving those elements (such as scheduled games during the day) that are working well for us, and being as inclusive as possible - look at what a find Dan has turned out to be! The important thing is about the community, and while there is some risk in having multiple houses with gaming, at the same time you can also look at it as having two houses full of people having a blast as opposed to one house.
If there was one place we fell down, it was in coordinating the evening games. I sent out a list of the games I was bringing, but I don't think people realized that there were a few games that people wanted to play that I *wasn't* bringing, such as Battlestar Galactica. I will take more of an active role in making sure someone brings all of the games people want to play rather than assuming people are checking.
As for the games I played this year, it was a bit surprising to have so many tactical and naval/air games going. I'm usually much more of a CDG player, and the only games I played of that nature was Here I Stand and Labyrinth. No traditional hex and counter games at all, such as A Victory Lost. There are some traditions starting to build up, such as a Fleet game and Burning Blue, and I'd like to see Here I Stand become a staple as well. I'd like to see Manifest Destiny make a return to the evening game table. I'd also like to find a game that we can play in some tournament form, as we've attempted with Maneuver in the past, probably very light and probably in the evenings, although I don't think Maneuver was successful enough to warrant giving another try and I recognize that this is a bit of a reach for this particular group. Maybe a Resident Evil tournament, which seemed to go over well in two plays - not a perfect game by any stretch, but it certainly seemed to evoke the right atmosphere and people enjoyed shooting the hell out of zombies.
As for this particular retreat, I would grade it very highly among already highly graded retreats of the past few years. The sleeping situation was better for everyone, people didn't mind having to walk five minutes to go to the main house and they spent all their time there, and people seemed fresher than in years past. I was also extremely happy to have such a full house so early in the week, with nine people there within 30 hours of opening up the house. For the most part people were relaxed and while a couple of people got frustrated with dice on a handful of occasions, they managed to deal with it before things got *really* uncomfortable. That sort of thing is really about just accepting that it's a game and that the outcome is much less important than the company and giving your head a massive workout. Best of all for me was once again recognizing that the end of the week was not so much something to be grieved over but something to celebrate, that instead of potential I now had more great gaming memories and some new games that I could play.
There is one postscript to the week that I was sort of expecting, although in the end it crept up on me. That realization is that there are several wargaming systems that I've invested heavily in over time (in terms of money and space, not so much in terms of play time) that I have finally accepted are neither games I am going to play or games I particularly want to play. Those systems are Panzer Grenadier, Second World War at Sea, The Great War at Sea, and Great Battles of History. I'd already made a decision to sell and stop collecting anything that was anything other than a strategic treatment of pre-20th Century subjects, and even a lot of the strategic treatments are going bye-bye. Including expansions, that's probably close to 100 games in my collection. It's also virtually everything I own published by Avalanche Press, with a few small-box exceptions. I'm also selling Pax Romana, Rise of Rome/Carthage, The Conquerors: Alexander, and quite a few more. I'll hold on to Successors and Sword of Rome, as well as Hellenes, but Athens and Sparta will go and a few more of the less successful Columbia block games. This will be the largest divestment of wargames I've ever done, something I've struggled with in the past because I didn't want to lose a game that I might end up liking later. This time, however, I've given all of these systems a shot and there is really no reason for me to keep them since I have so many other and better choices. I have several other games on the bubble, including many of the old AH/Smithsonian titles like Midway, and I'll need to do some work to make sure they're all complete (the GBoH games will take the most work, as there are so many C3i scenario counters that have been included in them).
Strangely, pulling all of these games hasn't helped my shelf space as much as I'd have liked, but I think this is a good step for me. The collection has become more of a burden than a joy in the past couple of years, and the acquisitiveness has to collapse at some point. A little discipline is a good thing and while I expect my actual gaming time will be going up, at the same time my collection is going to start to level out. It's still a *lot* of games.
Now if we can just get to the point where they're played using "smart" components, then I'll be a very happy man (and one with much lower moving costs)...
I hope you've enjoyed my navel gazing about what has to be the most challenging and fun weeks of my year. I honestly feel like I've studied for a dissertation defense by the time I get into the actual play, and it takes a couple of days for my brain and body to recover, but what a week it is. Thanks as always to my most marvelous opponents and comrades, without whom this would be me sitting in a room by myself playing solitaire. We make this thing work, and we come out of it better for the experience. In the end, that's the truly important thing. I'm honored to call all of you friends.
These kinds of numbers present us with some logistical issues, mainly where the hell everyone sleeps. You can fit seven people (more if there are SOs present) if people are willing to take couches in my family's place, so with eleven we had to rent an additional house, which was subsidized by Chuck and myself. Ken has a place out there too, but I am loathe to ask someone for the use of their house as it tends to make me look like an asshole and puts them in the position of feeling obligated to attend even if things go horribly horribly wrong (in my case, my nephew Alex can always take over hosting for me if necessary). However, this year Ken, who has a new job, really wasn't able to participate, but he did come out and work from his house but we had already rented a second house and he had some friends stopping by anyway to stay one or two nights. Next year, Ken thinks he can commit to being present and putting up a few people (and having a few games run at his house as well, more on that later).
Amazingly, we were able to find space for ten people to game through the entire week. At one point we had one game in the nook, two on the long dining table, one on a card table adjacent, and another on a corner table in the loft. Kind of crazy, but it's nice to have everyone in the same space. If there was a problem, it was in keeping the kitchen clean. That requires a certain amount of leadership on my part, and I just never got around to making a formal announcement so my bad there, although I suspect I have a higher level of cleanliness than most other people when it comes to kitchens.
Here's the thing - If even two more people come next year than this year, we will be able to sleep everyone in a bed (probably), but we won't have enough space to fit everyone on a table. If we break up the group into two spaces for gaming, that means that the "satellite" group has to move to a house that doesn't have their drinks, their lunch, their snacks and their stuff present, and there is a chance that they will have that house all to themselves, which in most people's minds didn't seem to be a good thing.
Here's a breakdown of the sorts of things that I got from people regarding what they value about the retreat and what they'd like to see in the future:
o Longer games, up to four or five days (or even the entire week) in some cases. That means finding committed space that we don't need the rest of the week, which includes the lighter evening games. Like last year, we did have one two-day game run, but it was in the nook and with Chuck and Mike (Ardennes '44). At the same time, not everyone wants a longer game.
o Fun atmosphere. For most, that means a certain number of people in a given space to lend more of a party vibe.
o Well stocked house. Drinks, snacks, extra dice, gaming supplies such as dice towers and poster frames or plexi. At a rental, all of these things must be brought in from the central location. You could include tunage in this list.
o Comfortable sleeping quarters. People don't mind sharing a room for a week, but they do want a bed that doesn't include someone grinding coffee beans in your ear in the morning because there's no wall between you and the grinder.
Interestingly, I had the people who wanted longer games also suggesting that we limit participation, which I felt was a false dichotomy. If you want to play a game for four or five days, you really are going to need a dedicated space, something that we can't really do in my house. There were suggestions to set up tables in bedrooms, but then all you've done is make the supplies handy, and that can be managed relatively easily by simply remembering to take supplies with you when you play at a satellite house. I think we could even set up webcams between the two houses, as most places have wi-fi, and keep the vibe going. Better to have the long game set up at a satellite location so that the core house can host evening games, and more people makes it easier to justify the satellite location.
My personal philosophy is one of inclusion - I really don't want to be in a position where I have to decide if one person can't go because there's an odd number, or because we're tight on tables. Those are very solvable problems and the thought of denying someone some of our WBC West goodness just doesn't sit right with me at an elemental level. If anything, I'd like to see this grow a bit over time - keep it invite only, so it's only people who fit into the general group gestalt (which I see as the biggest asset of WBC West), but expand it over time. The fact that Alex and his friend Dan came out and played a ton of games that were new to them (especially Dan, who took to wargaming like me to bourbon) was worth any extra pain that having extra people might have caused, and it didn't cause much.
In fact, there are several people who I'd have loved to have seen at this retreat who were unable to attend for personal or work reasons. I could see this group getting up to 15 or 16 gamers easily without going outside of wargamers I already know and play against. At that point, we're probably talking my house, Ken's house, and maybe one more for a few nights, depending upon when people come out, and probably gaming in two if not three houses. I think the more likely number is 12 gamers, which would have come close to taking every bed we had in the two houses we did have.
One thing that I noticed this year was that it was harder for people to get scheduled up quite as well as in the past, but there were two issues present in this case. One was Doug and Mimi being out of town for a month up to about two weeks before the retreat, making it hard to nail him down for what games he'd play when. The other was Dan's unfamiliarity with the pool of games, meaning that he had to rely on others to choose games to play. That worked out, but it required a little prodding. I don't think either of these was a huge issue or one that will carry over if there are more people involved, and the newer players understand well why we need to schedule games ahead of time, at least those we play during the day. The fact remains that when you add people into an event, the complexity both stays constant (the "startup" costs) and goes up exponentially (the "support" costs). To my mind, the startup costs have been taken care of and we have an effective process for everything from games played to providing dinner. The trick will be in determining the support costs in the face of uncertain but almost certainly increasing attendance numbers. Those who came earlier this year had a great time and I suspect will make every attempt to continue to do so, and those who came later will make an effort to come earlier.
The biggest adjustment will be in terms of learning to anticipate one's own supply needs when using a satellite house. It would be great to have one close by, preferably within 100 feet as the gamer walks, but a shift in mindset will still be necessary. I believe strongly in continuous improvement - examining how effective a system is and deciding what needs fixing and what would augment that system. That means that I take some small risks by trying out new ideas and seeing how they work. While it is still very early, I strongly suspect that next year we will be trying out the idea of satellite houses for not only sleeping, but gaming as well. Having someone take on a long-term game would help in that effort, and I don't think I'll have too much trouble finding people to do that (although it won't be me - I like to play a lot of games against a lot of opponents if possible). Depending on the game, it may even be possible to have people drop in and out of the long game as long as there are two consistent generals playing.
Of course, I'll also want to have more conversations with the stakeholders to get as clear a picture as I can, but in general we have a strong event with a strong set of attendees and I am extremely confident that we can withstand a certain amount of experimentation as we move forward. At the same time, I have no intention of messing with our core values - good games, good people, good fun. That means a continued vetting of people who attend, a commitment to preserving those elements (such as scheduled games during the day) that are working well for us, and being as inclusive as possible - look at what a find Dan has turned out to be! The important thing is about the community, and while there is some risk in having multiple houses with gaming, at the same time you can also look at it as having two houses full of people having a blast as opposed to one house.
If there was one place we fell down, it was in coordinating the evening games. I sent out a list of the games I was bringing, but I don't think people realized that there were a few games that people wanted to play that I *wasn't* bringing, such as Battlestar Galactica. I will take more of an active role in making sure someone brings all of the games people want to play rather than assuming people are checking.
As for the games I played this year, it was a bit surprising to have so many tactical and naval/air games going. I'm usually much more of a CDG player, and the only games I played of that nature was Here I Stand and Labyrinth. No traditional hex and counter games at all, such as A Victory Lost. There are some traditions starting to build up, such as a Fleet game and Burning Blue, and I'd like to see Here I Stand become a staple as well. I'd like to see Manifest Destiny make a return to the evening game table. I'd also like to find a game that we can play in some tournament form, as we've attempted with Maneuver in the past, probably very light and probably in the evenings, although I don't think Maneuver was successful enough to warrant giving another try and I recognize that this is a bit of a reach for this particular group. Maybe a Resident Evil tournament, which seemed to go over well in two plays - not a perfect game by any stretch, but it certainly seemed to evoke the right atmosphere and people enjoyed shooting the hell out of zombies.
As for this particular retreat, I would grade it very highly among already highly graded retreats of the past few years. The sleeping situation was better for everyone, people didn't mind having to walk five minutes to go to the main house and they spent all their time there, and people seemed fresher than in years past. I was also extremely happy to have such a full house so early in the week, with nine people there within 30 hours of opening up the house. For the most part people were relaxed and while a couple of people got frustrated with dice on a handful of occasions, they managed to deal with it before things got *really* uncomfortable. That sort of thing is really about just accepting that it's a game and that the outcome is much less important than the company and giving your head a massive workout. Best of all for me was once again recognizing that the end of the week was not so much something to be grieved over but something to celebrate, that instead of potential I now had more great gaming memories and some new games that I could play.
There is one postscript to the week that I was sort of expecting, although in the end it crept up on me. That realization is that there are several wargaming systems that I've invested heavily in over time (in terms of money and space, not so much in terms of play time) that I have finally accepted are neither games I am going to play or games I particularly want to play. Those systems are Panzer Grenadier, Second World War at Sea, The Great War at Sea, and Great Battles of History. I'd already made a decision to sell and stop collecting anything that was anything other than a strategic treatment of pre-20th Century subjects, and even a lot of the strategic treatments are going bye-bye. Including expansions, that's probably close to 100 games in my collection. It's also virtually everything I own published by Avalanche Press, with a few small-box exceptions. I'm also selling Pax Romana, Rise of Rome/Carthage, The Conquerors: Alexander, and quite a few more. I'll hold on to Successors and Sword of Rome, as well as Hellenes, but Athens and Sparta will go and a few more of the less successful Columbia block games. This will be the largest divestment of wargames I've ever done, something I've struggled with in the past because I didn't want to lose a game that I might end up liking later. This time, however, I've given all of these systems a shot and there is really no reason for me to keep them since I have so many other and better choices. I have several other games on the bubble, including many of the old AH/Smithsonian titles like Midway, and I'll need to do some work to make sure they're all complete (the GBoH games will take the most work, as there are so many C3i scenario counters that have been included in them).
Strangely, pulling all of these games hasn't helped my shelf space as much as I'd have liked, but I think this is a good step for me. The collection has become more of a burden than a joy in the past couple of years, and the acquisitiveness has to collapse at some point. A little discipline is a good thing and while I expect my actual gaming time will be going up, at the same time my collection is going to start to level out. It's still a *lot* of games.
Now if we can just get to the point where they're played using "smart" components, then I'll be a very happy man (and one with much lower moving costs)...
I hope you've enjoyed my navel gazing about what has to be the most challenging and fun weeks of my year. I honestly feel like I've studied for a dissertation defense by the time I get into the actual play, and it takes a couple of days for my brain and body to recover, but what a week it is. Thanks as always to my most marvelous opponents and comrades, without whom this would be me sitting in a room by myself playing solitaire. We make this thing work, and we come out of it better for the experience. In the end, that's the truly important thing. I'm honored to call all of you friends.
WBC West 2011 - Day 8
Sunday dawned after I had gotten perhaps the only eight hours of sleep the entire week. WBC West is not about sleep, but at some point you have to let it catch up with you, and Sunday morning was that morning. I still got up around 8, and was off to a very good start with closing up the house. The only game that seemed to be going on was an OCS demo, using a DAK2 scenario, run by Eric with Roger and Chris on the learning end. It seemed to go very well. There was, of course, some Ascension being played by Alex and Dan, which seemed to be their standard filler game (I got one in as well, although I barely count it because Dan spanked me *so* badly when he got a ton of Mechana constructs all working together within a couple of turns).
So it was that at 10am I decided that I could get in a game of Combat Commander: Pacific with Matt, who wanted to play a roll-your-own scenario. These work surprisingly well - the only real downside is that there are no special rules to take a specific action into account, but since you never know what sort of situation is going to pop up it makes for a very cool anything can happen type of game. Matt says he may only play this game using DIY setups in the future, and I can see why.
Matt took the US and I took the Japanese. Matt was defending a bridge over a deep ravine in the middle of a jungle, and the initial open objective was indeed that bridge for 5 points. He set up along the top of the ridge on my right side, with his other force flanking the bridge on my left. However, there was an unobserved path leading through the stream at the bottom of the ravine, and I sent a large force over there to both contest his high ground as well as dash out and take control of the bridge, which worked in the latter case. However, my strong melee force, which had the advantage of an Ambush card, failed miserably in melee and I lost my best leader right away, leaving three squads leaderless on that side of the map. Even a surprise hero that came onto the map got shot down almost immediately with no success. The last squad on that side of the map managed to get into melee against two Marine Rifle squads, aided by a combination of Ambush cards and Bayonets, but I got my usual low roll for melee while Matt had a huge roll. He kept the Initiative card throughout the entire game, btw, a wise move.
That left my small force of two squads and an average leader on the left flank, where I had had a single successful melee against a Rifle unit. When Matt knocked me down to a single squad and leader after two fast time events, I conceded. It was still a blast to play, and I felt I'd played in a very Japanese manner, with aggressive play trying to leverage decent melee situations, and had that first attempt worked I would have been in good position. A nice way to end the gaming, and we finished getting the house closed up and were home for dinner.
Quite an array of games played, and extremely good camaraderie.
Wrap up to follow...
So it was that at 10am I decided that I could get in a game of Combat Commander: Pacific with Matt, who wanted to play a roll-your-own scenario. These work surprisingly well - the only real downside is that there are no special rules to take a specific action into account, but since you never know what sort of situation is going to pop up it makes for a very cool anything can happen type of game. Matt says he may only play this game using DIY setups in the future, and I can see why.
Matt took the US and I took the Japanese. Matt was defending a bridge over a deep ravine in the middle of a jungle, and the initial open objective was indeed that bridge for 5 points. He set up along the top of the ridge on my right side, with his other force flanking the bridge on my left. However, there was an unobserved path leading through the stream at the bottom of the ravine, and I sent a large force over there to both contest his high ground as well as dash out and take control of the bridge, which worked in the latter case. However, my strong melee force, which had the advantage of an Ambush card, failed miserably in melee and I lost my best leader right away, leaving three squads leaderless on that side of the map. Even a surprise hero that came onto the map got shot down almost immediately with no success. The last squad on that side of the map managed to get into melee against two Marine Rifle squads, aided by a combination of Ambush cards and Bayonets, but I got my usual low roll for melee while Matt had a huge roll. He kept the Initiative card throughout the entire game, btw, a wise move.
That left my small force of two squads and an average leader on the left flank, where I had had a single successful melee against a Rifle unit. When Matt knocked me down to a single squad and leader after two fast time events, I conceded. It was still a blast to play, and I felt I'd played in a very Japanese manner, with aggressive play trying to leverage decent melee situations, and had that first attempt worked I would have been in good position. A nice way to end the gaming, and we finished getting the house closed up and were home for dinner.
Quite an array of games played, and extremely good camaraderie.
Wrap up to follow...
WBC West 2011 - Day 7
And so we arrived at Saturday, the saddest key of them all. Or so it had been in years past, but this year I was looking forward to the games more than disappointed that the week was coming to a close. Today, I was to play both The Burning Blue in a rematch with Roger, and learn PQ-17 from Tex.
Burning Blue is an interesting game in that it puts you in the position of sector air commander, in charge of sending out RAF squadrons to protect England from Luftwaffe bombing. A big part of the tension in the game is that you don't have the vaguest idea of how big a raid will be, and so you don't want to overcommit your forces because there might be a bigger (and notional) raid later in the day and you don't want to fatigue your pilots. Of course, you may have had raids earlier (again notional rather than real) and that's reflected in your readiness rolls.
This time, Roger got to plan the raids as the Luftwaffe, and I think he enjoyed the planning and what is essentially GMing (you get very few choices as the Luftwaffe once things start) as much as I did the last time we played. The game itself is made up of what are really fairly basic but heavily sequenced mechanisms, but they tend to be intertwined with each other, so that you are wondering when to tally (sight) opposing aircraft during what phase, or exactly when combat takes place. Next time I will put together a cheat sheet that lists the specific times when tallying takes place, much as I did for the Fleet game we played earlier in the week, assuming there isn't one already on the eight panel player aid that has the many many tables associated with the game. However, if you follow the sequence of play exactly, you will do alright so long as you understand that tallying and combat take place at several points during the turn and are aware of them. There's no question that we need to get together at some point in the next few months and give this another try so that we can internalize the system better and not spend so much time refreshing at the moment of play. And this despite us both rereading the rules!
Roger's raids formed up over France in fairly impressive form - there was a 200+ form-up that was rather frightening, plus a few more 30-40+ raids that took the numbers well over 300, meaning that I got a pretty good Early Warning of 3 Early squadrons in the air and another 2 Late squadrons (Early squadrons have established Orbits, which are helpful in tallying during enemy movement). I put these in staggered picket lines starting at Dover and working back to England. For some reason I thought that Patrol Lines were more effective, but really you want orbits if you can get them. The first raids to reach me were of course the smaller ones, and the first one turned out to be Freie Jagd, or a fighter sweep, and it broke the cohesion of my lead squadrons, forcing them to pancake (land) early. That's what the FJ are supposed to do, and Roger's were very effective. Of the seven initial squadrons scrambled, I don't think a single one touched a bomber, but they did mostly manage to Raid Match them, which just means that the raid was intercepted by my squadrons and thus did not bomb as effectively.
In fact, I think we shot down about 10 aircraft total the entire game, with largely ineffective rolls in combat throughout, mostly as it was fighter to fighter combat with only four actual attempts on bombers. What I *was* good at was keeping cohesion, and at least four or five attacks resulted in my planes staying in the air after a round of combat, which is both unusual and welcome as it only takes a single cohesion hit for a squadron to be forced to pancake. I was most effective against a small raid that had ME-110 close escort, although all I really did was send the ME-110's home. Also interesting was a 0 Angels ultra-low altitude bombing run featuring Erpro 210, the only organization that can make such an attempt. Roger sent them in underneath a larger raid and it made for an exciting surprise.
In the end, I had three squadrons in the air while Roger had one Freie Jagd mission still orbiting over the mouth of the Thames and one large raid (that had downgraded to 100+ from it's initial 200+). I was very nervous about sending up more than 8 squadrons and risking VP, but I thought that three squadrons just might cause the 3 cohesion hits necessary to send it home. Unfortunately, his Erpro 210 bombers had blown the Kenley sector comm network, and so a squadron I had *just* sent up was going to pancake as soon as it made it to it's vector location, which would be the next turn, so the only way it would attack was if it got a very lucky tally at long distance (made more difficult by an Air Picture that had degraded very quickly with a lot of low Cohesion rolls early on). Amazingly, not only that squadron, but all three of my remaining squadrons did indeed tally right at the point where Roger's final raid broke into three components. While I was unsuccessful in doing much damage to the bombers, perhaps shooting down one or two, I did successfully raid match them and thus kept his points down a bit. In the end, Roger scored 43.5 points, needing 44 to win. As it turned out, I could have launched one more squadron since the readiness level was 9.5 (the assumption on my part was that it was 8). I did not win, however, as the VP would have had to be 22 points, half of Roger's total, for the win, but I considered it a moral victory.
This game is a lot of fun, but it's more about watching a plan unfold and trying to react to it. There is not a huge amount of combat - I figure we rolled combat about 20 times total in four hours, and many of those were dogfights held over from previous phases or turns. Also, like in naval games luck plays a huge roll - if your pilot is looking left, he will tally the raid, but if he's looking right, he will miss it completely - so it's more about replaying history and an exciting narrative than about a competitive experience, although that is not to say that good players won't have a markedly better chance of success against poor players, just that you don't play this kind of game to be competitive. In the end, I came away liking the game even more than before having played both sides, and I feel I have enough of the rules internalized to give this a try with one or two of the solitaire scenarios available online. A really nice change of pace from the land-based games I usually play.
We finished right at 1pm, as planned, and Tex and I jumped right into PQ-17, a recent game that uses blocks in a slightly different way to game the Murmansk convoys in the Barents Sea. We played the first scenario, which allowed Tex to refresh the rules, me to learn them, but didn't leave much for the Axis player to do. My planes were grounded because of bad weather, and it was only after figuring out that the Random Events table would let them fly that it became apparent why I was assigned them in the first place. That left me with a U-Boat and five destroyers, one of which was inoperable (present solely for the Allies to bomb with their aircraft carrier, I guess). Tex, on the other hand, had a task force that featured an aircraft carrier with recon-capable aircraft so he could try to attack me with them.
I'm pretty sure we screwed up the dummy rules, which are pretty specific in how and when you can generate dummies, although Tex did a *lot* of breaking up and recombining of his naval vessels, and I never was able to get a successful search in any space that had his convoy, although I did have one very exciting moment when my three destroyers (one had been sunk by light drift ice) found his two destroyers and the carrier. Unfortunately, my crews were green and I failed to hit any of his boats, while he sunk one of mine and fled. Aside from a little sub-on-sub action, that was about it for combat. Like Burning Blue, this one hinges dramatically on how well you are able to locate the other player's units, and for the most part I failed. Perhaps I should have broken my destroyer task force up to improve my odds, but in any event the idea was to learn the system.
And here's the thing - PQ-17 has gotten a lot of flak for having incomprehensible rules, and there's some truth to that, although the main issues are ones of making the terminology clear as well as the way the rules are structured. At it's core, however, the systems are all pretty simple, although every type of combat has it's own process. And there aren't all that many of them. Ice, for example, simply means that you make a roll on a table based on the type of ice you are heading into. Fuel means that you track fuel based on your movement and combat for a given task force, and when the time marker hits that TF's fuel marker, it's status changes. Like Burning Blue, the most important thing to know is when you can make Recon attempts. Perhaps the most confusing is that the block sides don't reflect combat strength, as in every other block game, but how well identified the force is. To make that issue more confusing, the counters, which stay on your force display for the most part, *do* represent combat strength, but sometimes that means multiple ships and sometimes it means damage to a single ship. The designer is trying to make these concepts clearer in the Norway 1940 expansion he's working on, and I'm trying to help out, which will be easier now that I've played the game.
All of that said, it's a fun game that plays relatively quickly when someone understands the system. In most turns, you move, you search, and maybe there's some shooty-shooty. That's it. The complexity comes from when you search. You plot your moves, but that's largely for planning and unlike Burning Blue doesn't lock you into motion (in fact, Tex ran into a gale on his first move out of port and scrapped his entire plan). You need to move steadily toward the target because of fuel issues (and fewer chances to get sunk), but you've got options.
I found this to be the most satisfying naval game on this scale I own (Fleet is a different feel, much bloodier), whereas this one is more like one of those old "duel at sea" movies where a U-Boat and a destroyer are playing cat and mouse, with the roles switching from time to time. I found it to be extremely satisfying even with no Axis air power (other than the sector recon), and I'm looking forward to giving it another try in the near future.
As you can imagine, putting the two most demanding games, at least in terms of me learning the systems, right up at the end of what is usually a very long and demanding week, and I walked away from both feeling that I had a very good grip on the systems. An excellent time to go out for dinner, which we did at 7pm at the new Hola! restaurant that has taken over the old Trout House venue recently. If you're in the Sunriver area, or even the Bend area of Oregon, you would do worse than to try these venues out - excellent Peruvian/Mexican cuisine, really good drinks (I had the tamarind margarita, which came with chili-infused salt rimming the glass and a shaker filled with another serving), and nice decor. This is not your average cheese-bombed bad Mexican/American food, this is the real deal and well worth the trip.
After an excellent meal, we were all a little tired and I was barely able to get through five or so hands of Sticheln before my brain failed and I needed to get to bed to get one good night's sleep before leaving the next day.
And that, as far as I knew, was the end of gaming for me, as I planned to close up the house on Sunday while others played. Or was it...
Burning Blue is an interesting game in that it puts you in the position of sector air commander, in charge of sending out RAF squadrons to protect England from Luftwaffe bombing. A big part of the tension in the game is that you don't have the vaguest idea of how big a raid will be, and so you don't want to overcommit your forces because there might be a bigger (and notional) raid later in the day and you don't want to fatigue your pilots. Of course, you may have had raids earlier (again notional rather than real) and that's reflected in your readiness rolls.
This time, Roger got to plan the raids as the Luftwaffe, and I think he enjoyed the planning and what is essentially GMing (you get very few choices as the Luftwaffe once things start) as much as I did the last time we played. The game itself is made up of what are really fairly basic but heavily sequenced mechanisms, but they tend to be intertwined with each other, so that you are wondering when to tally (sight) opposing aircraft during what phase, or exactly when combat takes place. Next time I will put together a cheat sheet that lists the specific times when tallying takes place, much as I did for the Fleet game we played earlier in the week, assuming there isn't one already on the eight panel player aid that has the many many tables associated with the game. However, if you follow the sequence of play exactly, you will do alright so long as you understand that tallying and combat take place at several points during the turn and are aware of them. There's no question that we need to get together at some point in the next few months and give this another try so that we can internalize the system better and not spend so much time refreshing at the moment of play. And this despite us both rereading the rules!
Roger's raids formed up over France in fairly impressive form - there was a 200+ form-up that was rather frightening, plus a few more 30-40+ raids that took the numbers well over 300, meaning that I got a pretty good Early Warning of 3 Early squadrons in the air and another 2 Late squadrons (Early squadrons have established Orbits, which are helpful in tallying during enemy movement). I put these in staggered picket lines starting at Dover and working back to England. For some reason I thought that Patrol Lines were more effective, but really you want orbits if you can get them. The first raids to reach me were of course the smaller ones, and the first one turned out to be Freie Jagd, or a fighter sweep, and it broke the cohesion of my lead squadrons, forcing them to pancake (land) early. That's what the FJ are supposed to do, and Roger's were very effective. Of the seven initial squadrons scrambled, I don't think a single one touched a bomber, but they did mostly manage to Raid Match them, which just means that the raid was intercepted by my squadrons and thus did not bomb as effectively.
In fact, I think we shot down about 10 aircraft total the entire game, with largely ineffective rolls in combat throughout, mostly as it was fighter to fighter combat with only four actual attempts on bombers. What I *was* good at was keeping cohesion, and at least four or five attacks resulted in my planes staying in the air after a round of combat, which is both unusual and welcome as it only takes a single cohesion hit for a squadron to be forced to pancake. I was most effective against a small raid that had ME-110 close escort, although all I really did was send the ME-110's home. Also interesting was a 0 Angels ultra-low altitude bombing run featuring Erpro 210, the only organization that can make such an attempt. Roger sent them in underneath a larger raid and it made for an exciting surprise.
In the end, I had three squadrons in the air while Roger had one Freie Jagd mission still orbiting over the mouth of the Thames and one large raid (that had downgraded to 100+ from it's initial 200+). I was very nervous about sending up more than 8 squadrons and risking VP, but I thought that three squadrons just might cause the 3 cohesion hits necessary to send it home. Unfortunately, his Erpro 210 bombers had blown the Kenley sector comm network, and so a squadron I had *just* sent up was going to pancake as soon as it made it to it's vector location, which would be the next turn, so the only way it would attack was if it got a very lucky tally at long distance (made more difficult by an Air Picture that had degraded very quickly with a lot of low Cohesion rolls early on). Amazingly, not only that squadron, but all three of my remaining squadrons did indeed tally right at the point where Roger's final raid broke into three components. While I was unsuccessful in doing much damage to the bombers, perhaps shooting down one or two, I did successfully raid match them and thus kept his points down a bit. In the end, Roger scored 43.5 points, needing 44 to win. As it turned out, I could have launched one more squadron since the readiness level was 9.5 (the assumption on my part was that it was 8). I did not win, however, as the VP would have had to be 22 points, half of Roger's total, for the win, but I considered it a moral victory.
This game is a lot of fun, but it's more about watching a plan unfold and trying to react to it. There is not a huge amount of combat - I figure we rolled combat about 20 times total in four hours, and many of those were dogfights held over from previous phases or turns. Also, like in naval games luck plays a huge roll - if your pilot is looking left, he will tally the raid, but if he's looking right, he will miss it completely - so it's more about replaying history and an exciting narrative than about a competitive experience, although that is not to say that good players won't have a markedly better chance of success against poor players, just that you don't play this kind of game to be competitive. In the end, I came away liking the game even more than before having played both sides, and I feel I have enough of the rules internalized to give this a try with one or two of the solitaire scenarios available online. A really nice change of pace from the land-based games I usually play.
We finished right at 1pm, as planned, and Tex and I jumped right into PQ-17, a recent game that uses blocks in a slightly different way to game the Murmansk convoys in the Barents Sea. We played the first scenario, which allowed Tex to refresh the rules, me to learn them, but didn't leave much for the Axis player to do. My planes were grounded because of bad weather, and it was only after figuring out that the Random Events table would let them fly that it became apparent why I was assigned them in the first place. That left me with a U-Boat and five destroyers, one of which was inoperable (present solely for the Allies to bomb with their aircraft carrier, I guess). Tex, on the other hand, had a task force that featured an aircraft carrier with recon-capable aircraft so he could try to attack me with them.
I'm pretty sure we screwed up the dummy rules, which are pretty specific in how and when you can generate dummies, although Tex did a *lot* of breaking up and recombining of his naval vessels, and I never was able to get a successful search in any space that had his convoy, although I did have one very exciting moment when my three destroyers (one had been sunk by light drift ice) found his two destroyers and the carrier. Unfortunately, my crews were green and I failed to hit any of his boats, while he sunk one of mine and fled. Aside from a little sub-on-sub action, that was about it for combat. Like Burning Blue, this one hinges dramatically on how well you are able to locate the other player's units, and for the most part I failed. Perhaps I should have broken my destroyer task force up to improve my odds, but in any event the idea was to learn the system.
And here's the thing - PQ-17 has gotten a lot of flak for having incomprehensible rules, and there's some truth to that, although the main issues are ones of making the terminology clear as well as the way the rules are structured. At it's core, however, the systems are all pretty simple, although every type of combat has it's own process. And there aren't all that many of them. Ice, for example, simply means that you make a roll on a table based on the type of ice you are heading into. Fuel means that you track fuel based on your movement and combat for a given task force, and when the time marker hits that TF's fuel marker, it's status changes. Like Burning Blue, the most important thing to know is when you can make Recon attempts. Perhaps the most confusing is that the block sides don't reflect combat strength, as in every other block game, but how well identified the force is. To make that issue more confusing, the counters, which stay on your force display for the most part, *do* represent combat strength, but sometimes that means multiple ships and sometimes it means damage to a single ship. The designer is trying to make these concepts clearer in the Norway 1940 expansion he's working on, and I'm trying to help out, which will be easier now that I've played the game.
All of that said, it's a fun game that plays relatively quickly when someone understands the system. In most turns, you move, you search, and maybe there's some shooty-shooty. That's it. The complexity comes from when you search. You plot your moves, but that's largely for planning and unlike Burning Blue doesn't lock you into motion (in fact, Tex ran into a gale on his first move out of port and scrapped his entire plan). You need to move steadily toward the target because of fuel issues (and fewer chances to get sunk), but you've got options.
I found this to be the most satisfying naval game on this scale I own (Fleet is a different feel, much bloodier), whereas this one is more like one of those old "duel at sea" movies where a U-Boat and a destroyer are playing cat and mouse, with the roles switching from time to time. I found it to be extremely satisfying even with no Axis air power (other than the sector recon), and I'm looking forward to giving it another try in the near future.
As you can imagine, putting the two most demanding games, at least in terms of me learning the systems, right up at the end of what is usually a very long and demanding week, and I walked away from both feeling that I had a very good grip on the systems. An excellent time to go out for dinner, which we did at 7pm at the new Hola! restaurant that has taken over the old Trout House venue recently. If you're in the Sunriver area, or even the Bend area of Oregon, you would do worse than to try these venues out - excellent Peruvian/Mexican cuisine, really good drinks (I had the tamarind margarita, which came with chili-infused salt rimming the glass and a shaker filled with another serving), and nice decor. This is not your average cheese-bombed bad Mexican/American food, this is the real deal and well worth the trip.
After an excellent meal, we were all a little tired and I was barely able to get through five or so hands of Sticheln before my brain failed and I needed to get to bed to get one good night's sleep before leaving the next day.
And that, as far as I knew, was the end of gaming for me, as I planned to close up the house on Sunday while others played. Or was it...
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
WBC West 2011 - Day 6
Friday, Friday, Friday. Friday has traditionally been a bittersweet day at WBC West for me, as it means we are getting close to the end. This year, I made a conscious decision to take a different approach to the week, looking at it as coming closer to completing the cycle and having experienced such great games and generated such great memories. It was a successful paradigm shift for me, and I enjoyed the second half of the week much more overall than in past years. After all, while the point of the journey is not to arrive, at the same time when you do that arrival should be a source of joy rather than of regret that the journey is over. Because there will be more journeys - at least if you're doing it right.
Friday was my day with Chris S, who I have surprisingly little experience playing games with. Despite us working together as part of the Board Game Triumvirate for GameStorm in 2010 (along with Chris B), I can't think of a time when we'd played a game together up to that point. Chris likes 18xx games and Die Macher, which I am not as excited about, so while we've seen each other at cons and Chris has started to show up to occasional Rip City Gamers sessions, this was our very first one-on-one session.
First up was Labyrinth, a game that I've played more solitaire than two-player. The game is a different beast with two, and I take the chance to play the Jihadist when I can, which I did in this game, as I did when Chuck and I played some time ago. I've blogged on the game repeatedly, so I won't go into any details about how it works here.
Chris started out by making lots of War of Ideas rolls which were very successful in general. He managed to get the Gulf States to Good in no time at all, then did a great job of moving his troops around to good effect. I, on the other hand, had trouble doing anything that involved rolling dice, failing in all three attempts to get Central Asian/Russian WMDs in all three attempts in the first deck, the first time I've seen that happen. I also had half of my Major Jihads fail in a big way, which of course slowed me down tremendously. By the end of the game I started to remember that the dice had been similarly uncooperative for the Jihadists in my previous game (and cooperative for the US with their tan die) and I think that these dice are a bad lot and am going to replace them in the future. I have had similar problems with the dice in Barbarossa to Berlin, so it does happen.
My play, otherwise, was competent but not stellar. I came within a couple of ideal rolls of winning the game when there was an Oil Price Spike, but in general it was hard to win when most countries tested
Fair, when Chris made the majority of his War of Ideas rolls (helped tremendously by the quick success of the Gulf States, which in retrospect I should have made a focus early instead of Pakistan), and my inability to roll better than 30% of my recruitment rolls, even in Poor countries. At least my funding was mostly in very good shape. We got through about a third of the second deck before Chris won. I had a very good time, and Chris was a superior player and should have won, but it's hard to get full enjoyment when the dice are clearly a problem over multiple games. Even so, I like this game much more than I like Twilight Struggle with it's scoring card and precarious balance issues.
Next up for us was Warriors of God, a game that tends to generate a certain amount of controversy in our group because of it's unique use of chaos, specifically in that you can lose a lot of leaders because of a bad set of rolls and severely hamper your capabilities. And, while I had some major issues with that on the second turn, which more or less eliminated all but two of my leaders with almost no troops at all, my downfall was self-inflicted. I made two major errors, the first being that I forgot that leaders count as troops and thus there is absolutely no reason to "kill" a leader if there are any troops remaining to him (or to other leaders in the same space). My other mistake was to forget that a two star leader in jail was going to be a problem if he lasted a few turns. And so, I happily handed a two-star leader to Chris for incarceration who sat in jail for four turns and me with no way to get him out because I controlled almost nothing on the map.
The result was me trying desperately to regain board and troop position for the rest of the game. There was some bad luck, including the loss of leaders on the second turn (which only exacerbated the prisoner situation), and a long series of turns where I had the Initiative, so Chris got to pick his independent leaders first for a while, and in the end we were looking at the final turn with me down 15 VP, having finally staunched the tide around turn 5. Losing Ile-de-France for most of the game did not help, and therein was my third major error - forgetting that you can hide in the castle and accept siege, which would probably have provided another six points over the course of the game, very close to where we ended up. Unfortunate, especially when it's your own lack of experience with a game that is the source of your downfall, but that's the price those of us who like a lot of variety in the wargaming hobby have to pay from time to time. WofG is a pretty simple game at it's core from a mechanism standpoint, but it is not an easy game to play because there *is* so much chaos. As I've said before, however, wargames encourage you to hope for the best and plan for the worst, and in WofG there is a lot of worst to plan for.
And how do you plan in a game where your military position can evaporate overnight? The biggest trick is to understand what leaders will be joining you at the end of the turn and arranging so that the areas you control are going to concentrate troops so that you can place the leader there instead of in his home area, but hopefully close by so that you can move him there to take it at the end of the next turn if you don't have it already. There are other tricks too, but my point is that this is demonstrably not Candyland, as one person at the retreat called the game. On the contrary, my experience with so many "naval" and air games over the weekend showed me that they are equally chaotic due to the nature of searching for your enemy. Look right, and you find them, look left and you miss them. Given the chaotic nature of the conflict (we played the Lion in Winter scenario so we could get Robin Hood, who was an exciting character, working for both sides and a real game changer), I think it's perfectly acceptable and historical to have leaders who are there one minute and gone the next, especially in a game of this length.
Regardless, this is a game I'll continue to pull out in the future, and it's complexity level (now that I've refreshed on when to accept siege) is good for less-experienced gamers as well. It's a damned shame that the developer is more interested in being cute that providing helpful info on the counters, but that's my own thing.
For our evening game, we played Mansions of Madness, with Chris taking the role of the Keeper, while Matt, Mimi, Dan, and myself tried to get through the mansion. I admit that while I was very interested in playing the game, it was very clear to me on every turn what it was that my character needed to do and so when it came to my turn it took about 10 seconds to resolve, leaving a whole lot of downtime. I lost interest pretty quickly, which was not helped by one too many glasses of wine and a newly released version of Ticket to Ride on the iPad, and as such I spent about 30 minutes total on what ended up being about a four or five hour game that went far too late into the night. Kind of funny, as I was the character that found all of the important keys and clues that got us to the endgame, and I nearly got the goal item to the front door, only to get sucked back down the ladder to the lower levels, then went mad, then died irrevocably. The rest of the party followed fairly quickly and Chris' forces of evil won the day.
Chris felt that the game had too much downtime as well, and felt that perhaps it was best with three, although he also said that this was as close to winning as he'd seen any group go.
When it comes down to it, I think that my problem with this game, as with most semi-coop games where there is one person against several, that I much prefer being the one against a thousand. I like turning people into monkeys when they try to open a chest. I like springing surprises on people. I like knowing where everything is when no one else does. As such, this is a game I'm glad I have (it feels much more thematic than Descent, and that's saying something), but I don't know that I enjoy playing as one of the "mundanes" at all.
And that was Friday.
Friday was my day with Chris S, who I have surprisingly little experience playing games with. Despite us working together as part of the Board Game Triumvirate for GameStorm in 2010 (along with Chris B), I can't think of a time when we'd played a game together up to that point. Chris likes 18xx games and Die Macher, which I am not as excited about, so while we've seen each other at cons and Chris has started to show up to occasional Rip City Gamers sessions, this was our very first one-on-one session.
First up was Labyrinth, a game that I've played more solitaire than two-player. The game is a different beast with two, and I take the chance to play the Jihadist when I can, which I did in this game, as I did when Chuck and I played some time ago. I've blogged on the game repeatedly, so I won't go into any details about how it works here.
Chris started out by making lots of War of Ideas rolls which were very successful in general. He managed to get the Gulf States to Good in no time at all, then did a great job of moving his troops around to good effect. I, on the other hand, had trouble doing anything that involved rolling dice, failing in all three attempts to get Central Asian/Russian WMDs in all three attempts in the first deck, the first time I've seen that happen. I also had half of my Major Jihads fail in a big way, which of course slowed me down tremendously. By the end of the game I started to remember that the dice had been similarly uncooperative for the Jihadists in my previous game (and cooperative for the US with their tan die) and I think that these dice are a bad lot and am going to replace them in the future. I have had similar problems with the dice in Barbarossa to Berlin, so it does happen.
My play, otherwise, was competent but not stellar. I came within a couple of ideal rolls of winning the game when there was an Oil Price Spike, but in general it was hard to win when most countries tested
Fair, when Chris made the majority of his War of Ideas rolls (helped tremendously by the quick success of the Gulf States, which in retrospect I should have made a focus early instead of Pakistan), and my inability to roll better than 30% of my recruitment rolls, even in Poor countries. At least my funding was mostly in very good shape. We got through about a third of the second deck before Chris won. I had a very good time, and Chris was a superior player and should have won, but it's hard to get full enjoyment when the dice are clearly a problem over multiple games. Even so, I like this game much more than I like Twilight Struggle with it's scoring card and precarious balance issues.
Next up for us was Warriors of God, a game that tends to generate a certain amount of controversy in our group because of it's unique use of chaos, specifically in that you can lose a lot of leaders because of a bad set of rolls and severely hamper your capabilities. And, while I had some major issues with that on the second turn, which more or less eliminated all but two of my leaders with almost no troops at all, my downfall was self-inflicted. I made two major errors, the first being that I forgot that leaders count as troops and thus there is absolutely no reason to "kill" a leader if there are any troops remaining to him (or to other leaders in the same space). My other mistake was to forget that a two star leader in jail was going to be a problem if he lasted a few turns. And so, I happily handed a two-star leader to Chris for incarceration who sat in jail for four turns and me with no way to get him out because I controlled almost nothing on the map.
The result was me trying desperately to regain board and troop position for the rest of the game. There was some bad luck, including the loss of leaders on the second turn (which only exacerbated the prisoner situation), and a long series of turns where I had the Initiative, so Chris got to pick his independent leaders first for a while, and in the end we were looking at the final turn with me down 15 VP, having finally staunched the tide around turn 5. Losing Ile-de-France for most of the game did not help, and therein was my third major error - forgetting that you can hide in the castle and accept siege, which would probably have provided another six points over the course of the game, very close to where we ended up. Unfortunate, especially when it's your own lack of experience with a game that is the source of your downfall, but that's the price those of us who like a lot of variety in the wargaming hobby have to pay from time to time. WofG is a pretty simple game at it's core from a mechanism standpoint, but it is not an easy game to play because there *is* so much chaos. As I've said before, however, wargames encourage you to hope for the best and plan for the worst, and in WofG there is a lot of worst to plan for.
And how do you plan in a game where your military position can evaporate overnight? The biggest trick is to understand what leaders will be joining you at the end of the turn and arranging so that the areas you control are going to concentrate troops so that you can place the leader there instead of in his home area, but hopefully close by so that you can move him there to take it at the end of the next turn if you don't have it already. There are other tricks too, but my point is that this is demonstrably not Candyland, as one person at the retreat called the game. On the contrary, my experience with so many "naval" and air games over the weekend showed me that they are equally chaotic due to the nature of searching for your enemy. Look right, and you find them, look left and you miss them. Given the chaotic nature of the conflict (we played the Lion in Winter scenario so we could get Robin Hood, who was an exciting character, working for both sides and a real game changer), I think it's perfectly acceptable and historical to have leaders who are there one minute and gone the next, especially in a game of this length.
Regardless, this is a game I'll continue to pull out in the future, and it's complexity level (now that I've refreshed on when to accept siege) is good for less-experienced gamers as well. It's a damned shame that the developer is more interested in being cute that providing helpful info on the counters, but that's my own thing.
For our evening game, we played Mansions of Madness, with Chris taking the role of the Keeper, while Matt, Mimi, Dan, and myself tried to get through the mansion. I admit that while I was very interested in playing the game, it was very clear to me on every turn what it was that my character needed to do and so when it came to my turn it took about 10 seconds to resolve, leaving a whole lot of downtime. I lost interest pretty quickly, which was not helped by one too many glasses of wine and a newly released version of Ticket to Ride on the iPad, and as such I spent about 30 minutes total on what ended up being about a four or five hour game that went far too late into the night. Kind of funny, as I was the character that found all of the important keys and clues that got us to the endgame, and I nearly got the goal item to the front door, only to get sucked back down the ladder to the lower levels, then went mad, then died irrevocably. The rest of the party followed fairly quickly and Chris' forces of evil won the day.
Chris felt that the game had too much downtime as well, and felt that perhaps it was best with three, although he also said that this was as close to winning as he'd seen any group go.
When it comes down to it, I think that my problem with this game, as with most semi-coop games where there is one person against several, that I much prefer being the one against a thousand. I like turning people into monkeys when they try to open a chest. I like springing surprises on people. I like knowing where everything is when no one else does. As such, this is a game I'm glad I have (it feels much more thematic than Descent, and that's saying something), but I don't know that I enjoy playing as one of the "mundanes" at all.
And that was Friday.
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