Monday, we decided that this was the time to sell this house.
Tuesday, we had the realtor over, who told us that everything on every flat surface in the house had to go in a box in the garage. It better be a pretty big box...
Wednesday, we go looking for a house and find one. Fortunately, we can live with a combo shower/whirlpool bath set two feet under the floor of the bathroom; interesting wallpaper choices that largely include chickens, plaid patterns, and (I sh*t you not) mirrored walls; popcorn ceilings; andwhat appears to be storage for vinyl records and VHS tapes in what was apparently once a wood storage area right next to the fireplace. Because records actually sound better when exposed to 300 degree heat. Funny story - I ask the realtor (a different one than is selling the house) if we have to start voting Republican if we move out to this neighborhood with a golf course, and she says, without blinking, "Yes."
Thursday, we make an offer on the Chicken Ranch, $20k under the asking price. That tub is going to cost a pretty penny to remove.
Friday, we get a counter asking for $8000 of the asking price back. We don't budge.
More as I learn it...
Friday, August 31, 2007
Monday, August 27, 2007
End of an Era
Sometimes, things come at you very quickly. This summer has been one of those times for me. My 84-year-old mother has had some major life changes this summer, and as we were planning to move next spring anyway, my wife and I have decided to sell our home and move to Wilsonville, very close to where my mother's retirement community is. For those of you not familiar with the Portland Metro area, Wilsonville is as far south as it gets. While it is served by the major arterial in the area (I-5), traffic in the area is notoriously bad as it's the only real way to cross the Willamette river in the area.
In addition, because of the recent insanity in the lending market and it's effect on the housing market, we have decided to sell Right Now. This means that the house has to become showable within about two weeks, and we hope to sell by the end of October. After that, we are looking at a collapsing housing market in the traditionally slow part of the year, and we would almost certainly pull our home off of the market until next spring with no guarantee that we will be able to even get a mortgage at that time.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank our Glorious Leader, GWB, for his brilliant economic strategy of borrowing vast sums of money to finance his business interests in "rebuilding" Iraq. The current crazy market is a direct result of nearly a trillion dollars of taxpayer money thrown into an Islamic civil war that we never needed to start. At least Gonzales resigned today, too bad Bush and Cheney didn't make it a trifecta. But let's talk about me...
Because our group has had such difficulty attracting attendees for sessions on the periphery of the city, it is with great sadness that I have to announce that I am unlikely to host more than one more Tuesday night session, at least in the current rotation. I have been hosting regularly for something like 10 years, and I will miss it quite a bit.
I have no plans to get rid of many more games in collection (Tide of Iron and Age of Empires 3 excepted), as I expect to move closer to the city core in a few years when my mother no longer needs someone nearby. I also plan to continue attending Tuesday sessions, although I'm likely to go not much further north than Tigard on a regular basis. I have some fear that as the one person hosting in relatively central location with a decent game library that my departure will have a detrimental effect on Rip City Gamers. However, there is no question that making this move will ensure that my mother will be able to avoid an assisted living situation for at least a few years.
I will still continue to host an annual eurogaming retreat at Sunriver in the late spring, as well as WBC West in late August. WBC-West in particular was a very satisfying experience, and I'm hoping that I can set up a good gaming room in whatever house we end up living in. However, our target neighborhood has very low inventory right now so I may not have a lot of choices.
Thanks to the members of Rip City Gamers for their patience and understanding during the coming weeks, and I hope that we can find a regular site for gaming that will provide both a central location and a good library of games.
In addition, because of the recent insanity in the lending market and it's effect on the housing market, we have decided to sell Right Now. This means that the house has to become showable within about two weeks, and we hope to sell by the end of October. After that, we are looking at a collapsing housing market in the traditionally slow part of the year, and we would almost certainly pull our home off of the market until next spring with no guarantee that we will be able to even get a mortgage at that time.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank our Glorious Leader, GWB, for his brilliant economic strategy of borrowing vast sums of money to finance his business interests in "rebuilding" Iraq. The current crazy market is a direct result of nearly a trillion dollars of taxpayer money thrown into an Islamic civil war that we never needed to start. At least Gonzales resigned today, too bad Bush and Cheney didn't make it a trifecta. But let's talk about me...
Because our group has had such difficulty attracting attendees for sessions on the periphery of the city, it is with great sadness that I have to announce that I am unlikely to host more than one more Tuesday night session, at least in the current rotation. I have been hosting regularly for something like 10 years, and I will miss it quite a bit.
I have no plans to get rid of many more games in collection (Tide of Iron and Age of Empires 3 excepted), as I expect to move closer to the city core in a few years when my mother no longer needs someone nearby. I also plan to continue attending Tuesday sessions, although I'm likely to go not much further north than Tigard on a regular basis. I have some fear that as the one person hosting in relatively central location with a decent game library that my departure will have a detrimental effect on Rip City Gamers. However, there is no question that making this move will ensure that my mother will be able to avoid an assisted living situation for at least a few years.
I will still continue to host an annual eurogaming retreat at Sunriver in the late spring, as well as WBC West in late August. WBC-West in particular was a very satisfying experience, and I'm hoping that I can set up a good gaming room in whatever house we end up living in. However, our target neighborhood has very low inventory right now so I may not have a lot of choices.
Thanks to the members of Rip City Gamers for their patience and understanding during the coming weeks, and I hope that we can find a regular site for gaming that will provide both a central location and a good library of games.
WBC West Wrapup
For those of you following the reports, you know that we had a blast at WBC-West this year. Of course, there is always room for improvement, no matter how small, and with that in mind here is a report card of sorts for how I feel the event went and what we plan to do to change things.
Games - A-
In general, the games went very well. While one or two of the titles were less than we hoped, we picked games that were playable within the time we had available and finished all of them in the sense that it was always pretty clear who would win. I think that Reds! was the exception. I think we wish we'd played Sword of Rome rather than Wellington, but the last minute arrival changes made Welly a better bet were only three of us there early Tuesday.
Scheduling - B+
Chuck and I have learned that we set ourselves up for success if we plan what games we will play in advance. I had taken the tack that because of some games running longer than we expected them to, it made sense to leave the schedule a bit open the last couple of days (Sat/Sun), and to some extent this was true - Chuck and I finished BtB on one morning, while he and Tex got a bit further in their Reds! game that evening. However, it would have been nice to have a specific 3-player game scheduled for Saturday, and things were pretty up in the air Saturday evening and most of Sunday.
Another factor that I hadn't taken as much into account was scheduling those games that have difficult board situations early in the week. BtB is an extremely tense and heavy game in this sense, as you must always be considering the integrity of your lines on a board that can be hard to parse at times, especially in the areas west of Moscow. The rivers are particularly difficult for me to see on the original map. Playing this on Wednesday, then pulling it back out on Friday morning really demonstrated the mental load games like this put on my brain, and playing them later in the week was a recipe for a migraine, not to mention complete burnout. Next year we will make a stronger effort to schedule games for the full week, and be more aware of the difficulty of the board situation as well as the ruleset.
Stamina - A-
I did much better this year than last. Part of that was avoiding much drinking (I had one glass of port and two of wine the entire week), and part was picking lighter games later in the week. On the day Mike and I played games I was much happier playing things like Combat Commander and C&C: Ancients. I also had a bit more downtime in the last couple of days, resulting in a lower stress cleanup and better sleep the last night we were there. As an excellent measure of how much this has improved, last year I took the day after I returned to recover. This year, I spent three hours doing bookkeeping and attended a three hour choir rehearsal, all without the aid of simulants. OK, I had half a Coke in the afternoon. Next year I plan to incorporate vitamins of some sort into the equation to help with muscle stiffness as I'm likely to have to sleep in a twin bed again, if not on a couch, and so nutrition will be key.
I will also mention that the idea of playing lighter games (and by that I mean games that are as much ride as game) has proven itself to be genius. We'll keep this up in the future, no question.
Con Environment Simulation - A-
If there was one thing I really liked, it was playing both BtB and AVL with multiple copies at once. It was great fun to compare board positions and to ask the other game about specific rules. I was disappointed that the CC:E tournament never really materialized, although I personally got three games in. The problem was that two of us were really interesting in doing the tournament and the others not so much. Next year I will ask people to commit to playing a certain title (probably CC:M or C&C:A because of the short game length) and hold them to it, or simply not hold the tournament at all.
One factor that wasn't present - Con Funk. That's a huge plus.
Preparation - B
Because we had a preset schedule of sorts, it made it much easier for me to read rules and run through games ahead of time to improve my understanding of the games and enjoy them more. Where I fell down in this respect was in preparing for the evening games, which I didn't do at all. The biggest problems were with Britannia, but especially with Manifest Destiny (saddled as it is with rules that are as poorly organized as it gets). I'd like to play MD again next year, but will most definitely do a quick rules rewrite to isolate out the various innovations and breakthroughs from the basic sequence. The existing rules sprinkle these items throughout at the cost of readability. After all, if you want to know what the defensive benefit of cities is you don't really care about ten different special powers that you already have right in front of you. I would also create Breakthrough cards that list what the power does rather than force players to refer to a sheet that is likely out of reading range. In other words, anticipate the shortcomings of a given game package and try to rectify it in advance.
Venue - A
Sunriver continues to amaze me with it's ability to handle groups. This time out, we were able to accomodate Mimi's jigsaw puzzles in the nook while we extended the dining table and had all of the wargaming in the great room area. I personally did not miss having a video game system at all (other than the Dreamcast for a little old-school gaming), and I will probably just leave the Wii at home again next year (although it will come out for the RCG retreat). The kitchen was kept pretty clean, largely because Mimi did so much cooking, although I did not notice that she was spending a huge amount of time (which could be because I was focused on my game). I remember looking around the house around noon on Sunday and thinking that pretty much everything that needed to be done up to that point had been, which is always nice. The only thing I'd change is to put bubble wrap around the dining table legs to avoid Table Leg Collision Syndrome, which "hit" just about everyone. Ouchie!
Two problem that we may have next year if there are another two gamers: we run out of beds, and the nook becomes a wargaming room instead of a puzzle table. If this gets any bigger, we will have to consider getting a second house, which would cost something like $1000 and up for the week. This would increase the costs considerably, although with eight people attending that ends up something like $120 per gamer - really quite cheap considering that it gets spread around. However, I do like having everyone in a single space, and we are nowhere near being in this situation. The biggest issue is that we have to know that people will attend and they must commit the funds regardless of whether or not they attend, and we have to know about a year to 18 months in advance. Also, houses tend to rent Friday to Friday, although we will probably have a subset that isn't there for the second weekend. Again, a problem we aren't faced with immediately.
Length - A
Mike and I discussed the idea of running the week from Sunday night through Sunday afternoon instead of arriving on Monday. I'm very open to this, and think that perhaps a Saturday to Saturday session might be the wisest. I'm not quite sure that I can take many more days than we already have, as a lack of sleep starts to really hit you in your 40s, but if I can swing a couple of afternoons where I take care of house issues rather than play games, or sleep in/nap a few days, I may just host from Friday night through the following Sunday afternoon next year. Of course, people can come and go as they like, and this may work out better for some folks who only want to come for a couple of days. I'll consider this over the winter and see how others feel and if this would improve anyone's chances of attending if even for a few days. On the other hand, this is about as close to as long as I can continually game in one stretch, so I give it an A.
Overall - A-
While there are a few tweaks we can make, I have to say that we have pretty much come up with a format that keeps everyone fresh but having a great time through the entire week. Special thanks to Chuck for driving the schedule, as this is the single biggest factor in the success of the session.
One thing that I personally found to be helpful to me was bringing a few things to do during games where I might have some downtime. Between clipping Chuck's Nine Navies War set (during Britannia), opening and organizing my WoW:CCG boosters (during Runebound), and replacing our back door hanging screen (during AVL), I never felt like I was spending a lot of time waiting for someone else to make their play. Next year I'll probably bring a knitting project, especially if I'm playing the Germans in AVL (those STAVKA activations are murder), definitely more boosters, and definitely a game or four to clip. Other people will have other things that will work for them, but if there is anything that keeps me fresh other than knowing the game, knowing what complexity I can handle and for how long, and quality of rest, it is not sitting there bored for 15 minutes. This is not to say that *I* had this problem, nor that anyone else didn't, just that having something to keep me occupied for those periods where I had little to do will help me enjoy the week that much more.
Finally, I would like to thank everyone who attended. This was my first wargaming experience with Tex, and I hope he had as much fun as I did - we have surprisingly similar senses of humor and taste in games. Mike is always a pleasure to play with, almost as much fun as it is to point out that he is whining about the dice again. If I can find a set that only rolls sixes, I will definitely pick it up for you. Chuck is about as close to being on my wavelength as anyone I know, and I enjoy how relaxed and entertained I am in his presence, especially gaming but also on the trip out - we don't even notice that there's music while we're in the car as we yap yap yap yap yap.
But my biggest kudos go out to Mimi, whose sparkling personality, sense of humor, nourishing nature, and intelligence made us all feel loved and taken care of the entire week. Mimi, you are always welcome in my home.
Only 51 more weeks to WBC-West '08...
Games - A-
In general, the games went very well. While one or two of the titles were less than we hoped, we picked games that were playable within the time we had available and finished all of them in the sense that it was always pretty clear who would win. I think that Reds! was the exception. I think we wish we'd played Sword of Rome rather than Wellington, but the last minute arrival changes made Welly a better bet were only three of us there early Tuesday.
Scheduling - B+
Chuck and I have learned that we set ourselves up for success if we plan what games we will play in advance. I had taken the tack that because of some games running longer than we expected them to, it made sense to leave the schedule a bit open the last couple of days (Sat/Sun), and to some extent this was true - Chuck and I finished BtB on one morning, while he and Tex got a bit further in their Reds! game that evening. However, it would have been nice to have a specific 3-player game scheduled for Saturday, and things were pretty up in the air Saturday evening and most of Sunday.
Another factor that I hadn't taken as much into account was scheduling those games that have difficult board situations early in the week. BtB is an extremely tense and heavy game in this sense, as you must always be considering the integrity of your lines on a board that can be hard to parse at times, especially in the areas west of Moscow. The rivers are particularly difficult for me to see on the original map. Playing this on Wednesday, then pulling it back out on Friday morning really demonstrated the mental load games like this put on my brain, and playing them later in the week was a recipe for a migraine, not to mention complete burnout. Next year we will make a stronger effort to schedule games for the full week, and be more aware of the difficulty of the board situation as well as the ruleset.
Stamina - A-
I did much better this year than last. Part of that was avoiding much drinking (I had one glass of port and two of wine the entire week), and part was picking lighter games later in the week. On the day Mike and I played games I was much happier playing things like Combat Commander and C&C: Ancients. I also had a bit more downtime in the last couple of days, resulting in a lower stress cleanup and better sleep the last night we were there. As an excellent measure of how much this has improved, last year I took the day after I returned to recover. This year, I spent three hours doing bookkeeping and attended a three hour choir rehearsal, all without the aid of simulants. OK, I had half a Coke in the afternoon. Next year I plan to incorporate vitamins of some sort into the equation to help with muscle stiffness as I'm likely to have to sleep in a twin bed again, if not on a couch, and so nutrition will be key.
I will also mention that the idea of playing lighter games (and by that I mean games that are as much ride as game) has proven itself to be genius. We'll keep this up in the future, no question.
Con Environment Simulation - A-
If there was one thing I really liked, it was playing both BtB and AVL with multiple copies at once. It was great fun to compare board positions and to ask the other game about specific rules. I was disappointed that the CC:E tournament never really materialized, although I personally got three games in. The problem was that two of us were really interesting in doing the tournament and the others not so much. Next year I will ask people to commit to playing a certain title (probably CC:M or C&C:A because of the short game length) and hold them to it, or simply not hold the tournament at all.
One factor that wasn't present - Con Funk. That's a huge plus.
Preparation - B
Because we had a preset schedule of sorts, it made it much easier for me to read rules and run through games ahead of time to improve my understanding of the games and enjoy them more. Where I fell down in this respect was in preparing for the evening games, which I didn't do at all. The biggest problems were with Britannia, but especially with Manifest Destiny (saddled as it is with rules that are as poorly organized as it gets). I'd like to play MD again next year, but will most definitely do a quick rules rewrite to isolate out the various innovations and breakthroughs from the basic sequence. The existing rules sprinkle these items throughout at the cost of readability. After all, if you want to know what the defensive benefit of cities is you don't really care about ten different special powers that you already have right in front of you. I would also create Breakthrough cards that list what the power does rather than force players to refer to a sheet that is likely out of reading range. In other words, anticipate the shortcomings of a given game package and try to rectify it in advance.
Venue - A
Sunriver continues to amaze me with it's ability to handle groups. This time out, we were able to accomodate Mimi's jigsaw puzzles in the nook while we extended the dining table and had all of the wargaming in the great room area. I personally did not miss having a video game system at all (other than the Dreamcast for a little old-school gaming), and I will probably just leave the Wii at home again next year (although it will come out for the RCG retreat). The kitchen was kept pretty clean, largely because Mimi did so much cooking, although I did not notice that she was spending a huge amount of time (which could be because I was focused on my game). I remember looking around the house around noon on Sunday and thinking that pretty much everything that needed to be done up to that point had been, which is always nice. The only thing I'd change is to put bubble wrap around the dining table legs to avoid Table Leg Collision Syndrome, which "hit" just about everyone. Ouchie!
Two problem that we may have next year if there are another two gamers: we run out of beds, and the nook becomes a wargaming room instead of a puzzle table. If this gets any bigger, we will have to consider getting a second house, which would cost something like $1000 and up for the week. This would increase the costs considerably, although with eight people attending that ends up something like $120 per gamer - really quite cheap considering that it gets spread around. However, I do like having everyone in a single space, and we are nowhere near being in this situation. The biggest issue is that we have to know that people will attend and they must commit the funds regardless of whether or not they attend, and we have to know about a year to 18 months in advance. Also, houses tend to rent Friday to Friday, although we will probably have a subset that isn't there for the second weekend. Again, a problem we aren't faced with immediately.
Length - A
Mike and I discussed the idea of running the week from Sunday night through Sunday afternoon instead of arriving on Monday. I'm very open to this, and think that perhaps a Saturday to Saturday session might be the wisest. I'm not quite sure that I can take many more days than we already have, as a lack of sleep starts to really hit you in your 40s, but if I can swing a couple of afternoons where I take care of house issues rather than play games, or sleep in/nap a few days, I may just host from Friday night through the following Sunday afternoon next year. Of course, people can come and go as they like, and this may work out better for some folks who only want to come for a couple of days. I'll consider this over the winter and see how others feel and if this would improve anyone's chances of attending if even for a few days. On the other hand, this is about as close to as long as I can continually game in one stretch, so I give it an A.
Overall - A-
While there are a few tweaks we can make, I have to say that we have pretty much come up with a format that keeps everyone fresh but having a great time through the entire week. Special thanks to Chuck for driving the schedule, as this is the single biggest factor in the success of the session.
One thing that I personally found to be helpful to me was bringing a few things to do during games where I might have some downtime. Between clipping Chuck's Nine Navies War set (during Britannia), opening and organizing my WoW:CCG boosters (during Runebound), and replacing our back door hanging screen (during AVL), I never felt like I was spending a lot of time waiting for someone else to make their play. Next year I'll probably bring a knitting project, especially if I'm playing the Germans in AVL (those STAVKA activations are murder), definitely more boosters, and definitely a game or four to clip. Other people will have other things that will work for them, but if there is anything that keeps me fresh other than knowing the game, knowing what complexity I can handle and for how long, and quality of rest, it is not sitting there bored for 15 minutes. This is not to say that *I* had this problem, nor that anyone else didn't, just that having something to keep me occupied for those periods where I had little to do will help me enjoy the week that much more.
Finally, I would like to thank everyone who attended. This was my first wargaming experience with Tex, and I hope he had as much fun as I did - we have surprisingly similar senses of humor and taste in games. Mike is always a pleasure to play with, almost as much fun as it is to point out that he is whining about the dice again. If I can find a set that only rolls sixes, I will definitely pick it up for you. Chuck is about as close to being on my wavelength as anyone I know, and I enjoy how relaxed and entertained I am in his presence, especially gaming but also on the trip out - we don't even notice that there's music while we're in the car as we yap yap yap yap yap.
But my biggest kudos go out to Mimi, whose sparkling personality, sense of humor, nourishing nature, and intelligence made us all feel loved and taken care of the entire week. Mimi, you are always welcome in my home.
Only 51 more weeks to WBC-West '08...
Sunday, August 26, 2007
WBC West Report, Day 6b and Day 7
When we last left out intrepid gamers, they were ready to grab some dinner on Saturday, the last full day of the event. No one really had any good ideas of what to play in the evening, so we pulled out Formula De, the game we'd planned to play on Sunday as we were packing up and closing the house. I'd brought several tracks, but as several people were not "pros" at this game (Mike had never played before), we decided to do a one-lap race using the Belgian course at Spa. The course has opportunities for getting into sixth gear, and some tricky turns, but nothing too complicated for beginners. Tex managed to go from first to last with his cars, Chuck snuck into first (and last, sort of), I kept my second place start position in my lead car after falling to 8th in mid-race, and Mike managed to blow up *both* of his cars in a single collision. I think this may be historic. A fun game, but I think I need to play with experienced drivers who can roll and run. After that, it was time for bed.
Sunday morning saw Chuck and Mike going at Chuck's Ugly Girlfriend, Twilight Struggle (hmm, maybe the game's title gives us more information about what Chuck does in the evenings!). Not once, but twice. No sense not throwing good time after bad, I guess! Mike hadn't played for a while and made some bad choices in the early going of the first game as the US, so they started over, with the USSR winning near the end of the Mid War. A great concept that is far too vulnerable to bad card draws, I'm afraid, for me to request it.
The final game was We the People, with Chuck taking those dastardly traitors to the Crown, while I took the side of the good guys. I firmly believe that the Brits win this game in the South, and if they can remove the possibility of American reinforcements from the Carolinas south by turning everything south of the Winter Attrition Line orange, they stand an excellent chance of winning. I'd used Howe to take Rhode Island up north, so along with Canada, Massachussetts, and the three southern states that would be enough for the win. In fact, very little happened up north after Clinton showed up with 8 CUs in New York.
Chuck tried to force the issue by moving Washington into Boston, but that proved to be a very bad idea indeed. The Brits has largely pushed the Americans out of the south, but one American army went south to prevent the loss of Virginia as well while Washington moved into Boston to take Massachussetts. However, this proved to be a Very Bad Idea as the spaces both north and south of Boston were British, and Clinton moved into the space to the west to lock Washington into the space. In fact, I warned Chuck about this, and when Howe marched into Boston to eliminate Washington in two battle card plays, it was all over. I'd won my first game of this largely great title against Dave (something like 10 years ago) by tricking Washington into going after a space in an area that would trap him, and while I wasn't really trying to lure Chuck into Boston, it was a pretty obvious target as it is also a Wintering space.
While all of this sounds like I actually had a plan (and, to be honest, did), the truth of the matter is that after the first couple of hands I had spectacular hands. In six turns, two of the hands were nothing but operations cards, meaning that I could almost always move and react to whatever Chuck was doing. While I have *very* few British event cards, we did draw the European War card that reshuffles the deck pretty much every other turn, so the French never showed up. On the other hand, my second hand had two 2 cards, two North's Govt cards, two American events, and the Declaration of Independence, so I definitely started the game gimped as one of the 2 cards had to be used to bring in the 8 CUs of Brit reinforcements to New York to set up Clinton. It also helped that Chuck was under the mistaken impression that the various armies could only move 3 spaces instead of 4 when activated despite the number being right on the card!
WtP is kind of a luck fest with the card draws, but it was good fun and a game I should bring out more despite the fact that the cards can completely screw you - a turn with *no* options is unlikely, but almost certainly a game ender. And I *really* hate games where you have to play a card that does you tremendous damage, as Declaration does. On the plus side, I was able to do myself some good by ensuring that there would only be a few colonies for Chuck to place PCs in, but the principle stands. Hannibal has no cards like this, nor does Wilderness War, and I think that at least the Americans should have to give the Brits a card if the latter have to play it.
Of course, I won rather handily, so there you go.
I will do a wrapup entry in the next few days once I've reoriented myself to the mundane world, but with the exception of Age of Empires III ("a very, very good game" indeed) and an abortive attempt at the Gettysburg block game (for whom I have no one else to blame), it was a great week with many successes and even a few wins.
Sunday morning saw Chuck and Mike going at Chuck's Ugly Girlfriend, Twilight Struggle (hmm, maybe the game's title gives us more information about what Chuck does in the evenings!). Not once, but twice. No sense not throwing good time after bad, I guess! Mike hadn't played for a while and made some bad choices in the early going of the first game as the US, so they started over, with the USSR winning near the end of the Mid War. A great concept that is far too vulnerable to bad card draws, I'm afraid, for me to request it.
The final game was We the People, with Chuck taking those dastardly traitors to the Crown, while I took the side of the good guys. I firmly believe that the Brits win this game in the South, and if they can remove the possibility of American reinforcements from the Carolinas south by turning everything south of the Winter Attrition Line orange, they stand an excellent chance of winning. I'd used Howe to take Rhode Island up north, so along with Canada, Massachussetts, and the three southern states that would be enough for the win. In fact, very little happened up north after Clinton showed up with 8 CUs in New York.
Chuck tried to force the issue by moving Washington into Boston, but that proved to be a very bad idea indeed. The Brits has largely pushed the Americans out of the south, but one American army went south to prevent the loss of Virginia as well while Washington moved into Boston to take Massachussetts. However, this proved to be a Very Bad Idea as the spaces both north and south of Boston were British, and Clinton moved into the space to the west to lock Washington into the space. In fact, I warned Chuck about this, and when Howe marched into Boston to eliminate Washington in two battle card plays, it was all over. I'd won my first game of this largely great title against Dave (something like 10 years ago) by tricking Washington into going after a space in an area that would trap him, and while I wasn't really trying to lure Chuck into Boston, it was a pretty obvious target as it is also a Wintering space.
While all of this sounds like I actually had a plan (and, to be honest, did), the truth of the matter is that after the first couple of hands I had spectacular hands. In six turns, two of the hands were nothing but operations cards, meaning that I could almost always move and react to whatever Chuck was doing. While I have *very* few British event cards, we did draw the European War card that reshuffles the deck pretty much every other turn, so the French never showed up. On the other hand, my second hand had two 2 cards, two North's Govt cards, two American events, and the Declaration of Independence, so I definitely started the game gimped as one of the 2 cards had to be used to bring in the 8 CUs of Brit reinforcements to New York to set up Clinton. It also helped that Chuck was under the mistaken impression that the various armies could only move 3 spaces instead of 4 when activated despite the number being right on the card!
WtP is kind of a luck fest with the card draws, but it was good fun and a game I should bring out more despite the fact that the cards can completely screw you - a turn with *no* options is unlikely, but almost certainly a game ender. And I *really* hate games where you have to play a card that does you tremendous damage, as Declaration does. On the plus side, I was able to do myself some good by ensuring that there would only be a few colonies for Chuck to place PCs in, but the principle stands. Hannibal has no cards like this, nor does Wilderness War, and I think that at least the Americans should have to give the Brits a card if the latter have to play it.
Of course, I won rather handily, so there you go.
I will do a wrapup entry in the next few days once I've reoriented myself to the mundane world, but with the exception of Age of Empires III ("a very, very good game" indeed) and an abortive attempt at the Gettysburg block game (for whom I have no one else to blame), it was a great week with many successes and even a few wins.
Saturday, August 25, 2007
WBC West Report, Day 6
As the week goes on here in Sunriver, there is a definite effect on the players (at least me) that I call Leaking Brain Syndrome. At some point, the relative lack of sleep and near constant tension and concentration start to wear to the point where even focusing my vision on a map requires more effort than I can muster. As such, we tried to schedule the week such that the heavier material would come earlier in the week, and for the most part we were successful. Two things in particular have really eaten away at my stamina - the first is having to search a ruleset for obscure situations (and sometimes obvious ones), which I've more or less minimized by studying the games we plan to play in advance through reading rules and occasionally running through a play session in advance. The second and more difficult problem is that many of these games require a close examination of the board situation and/or idiosyncrasies of the map. In other words, having a game that requires a lot of concentration to enjoy, such as BtB, uses up my resources much faster than a "ride" game, such as Arkham Horror.
And so it was that I immediately violated my second rule (lighter games later in the week) as Chuck and I decided to finish our BtB game in the morning. We only had a third of the game to go, which actually goes a bit quicker once the Western Allies start getting on the board and require more OPs and thus less time to resolve. This also, oddly, gives the Germans a bit of a breather on the Eastern Front as there are only so many OPs to go around, although it also requires the Germans to get their reinforcements out in a prompt manner so as to have units to deal with the Brits and US.
I began 1944 by putting up trenches on the Eastern Front, buying me a bit of time, while Chuck landed the Allies in France using Round-Up. This meant Calais, and he quickly learned why this is a Bad Idea when the Atlantic Wall has been built. A single 3-3-3 army held off the invasion, and a couple of extra units moved into the space thanks to the use of a 1-OPS on the second turn when Chuck forgot that you can't play OPS *cards* during the Spring Thaw. This effectively bottled up his forces in Northern France into the Summer, and he landed the Frogs in Marseille soon after, which were met by the Slowest Army In The World, Goering's Fliegelkorps. Unfortunately for Chuck the FJ threw the French out of Marseilles (his die rolling went seriously south for a couple of turns), and we ran into a very complex situation where we weren't sure if the French ended up eliminated in the space in question as they had to retreat two spaces, pushing them off of the beachhead. It was a bit of a mess, frankly, but it all ended up to Chuck's benefit when he got a US army and a corps into Vichy France.
At this point it was time to pull the Germans off of the Cassino Line in Italy, and form up a line just west of the West Wall, although the Allies had yet to get off the beaches in Calais. The Russians had convinced the Romanians to defect, but in general were having some trouble making serious headway in the northern part of Russia. As the end of 1944 neared, and Chuck realized he had just a few more than two turns to grab 20 points, he conceded. Kind of a depressing end to what had been a very tense game, although I think that had he rolled Hitler Orders one more time I would have had to burn some of those VP just to get the Balkan approaches to Germany secured as most of my units had been locked on the front line in the second half of 1944.
Chuck then picked up his game of Reds! with Tex, and Mike and I pulled out Combat Commander to play the Rubble Rousers scenario from the bonus sheet sent to P500 customers. This is a particularly interesting scenario as both the Russians and Germans are defending in Stalingrad, and each side sets up in a triangle of the board. Mike won handily when time ran out, although I came very close to doing serious damage to his broken units thanks to a fortuitous 150mm arty battery that showed up very late. Sadly, the first barrage drifted the wrong direction, and the second did as well as Mike pulled his final card to trigger Sudden Death. Even though I spent most of the game trying to do things that weren't working particularly well (it was very bad when a melee went wrong when I drew a three when I'd had a very good differential going into the combat and I lost eight points). Even so, this game will see so many plays, with great tension and relatively low situational complexity, in a scope that is currently only filled by the ultra-complex ASL and poor ruleset of Up Front!. Clearly the game of the year, and I strongly suspect the game of the decade.
At this point, Mike and I took time to get our blog entries up to date, followed by an attempt to get the leftovers eaten before we had to leave the next day. I'm always very sad to see the week come to a close, although I am happy to get home to normalcy (a good thing for me) and a comfy bed and regular sleep schedule. And my wife and dogs, of course.
I will post the evening game with the report from Day 7 (which will consist mostly of a Formula De game) in the near future. Thanks for following along if you've been with me this far.
And so it was that I immediately violated my second rule (lighter games later in the week) as Chuck and I decided to finish our BtB game in the morning. We only had a third of the game to go, which actually goes a bit quicker once the Western Allies start getting on the board and require more OPs and thus less time to resolve. This also, oddly, gives the Germans a bit of a breather on the Eastern Front as there are only so many OPs to go around, although it also requires the Germans to get their reinforcements out in a prompt manner so as to have units to deal with the Brits and US.
I began 1944 by putting up trenches on the Eastern Front, buying me a bit of time, while Chuck landed the Allies in France using Round-Up. This meant Calais, and he quickly learned why this is a Bad Idea when the Atlantic Wall has been built. A single 3-3-3 army held off the invasion, and a couple of extra units moved into the space thanks to the use of a 1-OPS on the second turn when Chuck forgot that you can't play OPS *cards* during the Spring Thaw. This effectively bottled up his forces in Northern France into the Summer, and he landed the Frogs in Marseille soon after, which were met by the Slowest Army In The World, Goering's Fliegelkorps. Unfortunately for Chuck the FJ threw the French out of Marseilles (his die rolling went seriously south for a couple of turns), and we ran into a very complex situation where we weren't sure if the French ended up eliminated in the space in question as they had to retreat two spaces, pushing them off of the beachhead. It was a bit of a mess, frankly, but it all ended up to Chuck's benefit when he got a US army and a corps into Vichy France.
At this point it was time to pull the Germans off of the Cassino Line in Italy, and form up a line just west of the West Wall, although the Allies had yet to get off the beaches in Calais. The Russians had convinced the Romanians to defect, but in general were having some trouble making serious headway in the northern part of Russia. As the end of 1944 neared, and Chuck realized he had just a few more than two turns to grab 20 points, he conceded. Kind of a depressing end to what had been a very tense game, although I think that had he rolled Hitler Orders one more time I would have had to burn some of those VP just to get the Balkan approaches to Germany secured as most of my units had been locked on the front line in the second half of 1944.
Chuck then picked up his game of Reds! with Tex, and Mike and I pulled out Combat Commander to play the Rubble Rousers scenario from the bonus sheet sent to P500 customers. This is a particularly interesting scenario as both the Russians and Germans are defending in Stalingrad, and each side sets up in a triangle of the board. Mike won handily when time ran out, although I came very close to doing serious damage to his broken units thanks to a fortuitous 150mm arty battery that showed up very late. Sadly, the first barrage drifted the wrong direction, and the second did as well as Mike pulled his final card to trigger Sudden Death. Even though I spent most of the game trying to do things that weren't working particularly well (it was very bad when a melee went wrong when I drew a three when I'd had a very good differential going into the combat and I lost eight points). Even so, this game will see so many plays, with great tension and relatively low situational complexity, in a scope that is currently only filled by the ultra-complex ASL and poor ruleset of Up Front!. Clearly the game of the year, and I strongly suspect the game of the decade.
At this point, Mike and I took time to get our blog entries up to date, followed by an attempt to get the leftovers eaten before we had to leave the next day. I'm always very sad to see the week come to a close, although I am happy to get home to normalcy (a good thing for me) and a comfy bed and regular sleep schedule. And my wife and dogs, of course.
I will post the evening game with the report from Day 7 (which will consist mostly of a Formula De game) in the near future. Thanks for following along if you've been with me this far.
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