Check out the latest UK Math Trade - I'm hoping to unload some of my ancient history!
(Thanks Iain for the tip.)
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
It's my PRECIOUS!!
Dave arrived on my doorstep yesterday evening, all the way from Salisbury and full of enthusiasm for another War of the Ring session (with the beautifully painted figures, isn't they, Precious.) I took the Shadow this time - it's quite a while since I was on this side of the fence, and I enjoyed it a lot - brooding in my dark tower, gathering numberless hosts of minions, sending forth my Nazgul to spread terror abroad, and launching waves of dark armies to enslave the world.
There were a couple of highlights in the game: Dave sent Gandalf to Erebor to rouse the dwarves and gather an army, which attacked a large army of Easterlings in the Vale of Carnen and destroyed it! Unfortunately for Dave there was another army of orcs close behind who found the defenders of Erebor nicely depleted by their victory. Another time the Witch King returned to Angmar and marched against Rivendell, taking it after a long and bitter seige.
The struggle ended with the fall of Dol Amroth, sealing a military victory for me, with the fellowship yet to reach Mordor.
I really enjoy the sense of story in this game, the way it follows a narrative arc towards a definite and rapidly approaching conclusion. At the moment every playing is dramatic and different, it's hard to imagine it becoming stale for a long while yet.
There were a couple of highlights in the game: Dave sent Gandalf to Erebor to rouse the dwarves and gather an army, which attacked a large army of Easterlings in the Vale of Carnen and destroyed it! Unfortunately for Dave there was another army of orcs close behind who found the defenders of Erebor nicely depleted by their victory. Another time the Witch King returned to Angmar and marched against Rivendell, taking it after a long and bitter seige.
The struggle ended with the fall of Dol Amroth, sealing a military victory for me, with the fellowship yet to reach Mordor.
I really enjoy the sense of story in this game, the way it follows a narrative arc towards a definite and rapidly approaching conclusion. At the moment every playing is dramatic and different, it's hard to imagine it becoming stale for a long while yet.
Friday, September 01, 2006
ManifestoGames.com
OK I know this is a board games blog, but you need to have a look at this.
The machinery of gaming has run amok.
Instead of serving creative vision, it suppresses it. Instead of encouraging innovation, it represses it. Instead of taking its cue from our most imaginative minds, it takes its cue from the latest month's PC Data list. Instead of rewarding those who succeed, it penalizes them with development budgets so high and royalties so low that there can be no reward for creators. Instead of ascribing credit to those who deserve it, it seeks to associate success with the corporate machine.
It is time for revolution.
The machinery of gaming has run amok.
Instead of serving creative vision, it suppresses it. Instead of encouraging innovation, it represses it. Instead of taking its cue from our most imaginative minds, it takes its cue from the latest month's PC Data list. Instead of rewarding those who succeed, it penalizes them with development budgets so high and royalties so low that there can be no reward for creators. Instead of ascribing credit to those who deserve it, it seeks to associate success with the corporate machine.
It is time for revolution.
Grumble
I had to cancel a game session with my local group last night because I was working late. And a long-awaited Rommel in the Desert session with Iain tomorrow fell victim to Iain's family pressures.
Adult life, eh? My gaming life at the moment seems to consist of reading gameblogs, occasional visits to game shops, reading rules - but never actually playing the games. All foreplay and no main event. Sad isn't it?
Adult life, eh? My gaming life at the moment seems to consist of reading gameblogs, occasional visits to game shops, reading rules - but never actually playing the games. All foreplay and no main event. Sad isn't it?
Music, Mud and Muesli
Greenbelt was good again. I didn't see so much music this year - I think the real strength of Greenbelt lies in its talks and seminars. However I did spend an hour on stage with a full-on rock band! This was on Saturday morning when I was helping to lead a worship service with The Burn Band - don't worry, I didn't sing, I was just doing a few readings. But with the lights and the mikes and the music - I felt like a star!
Many highlights this year: Andrew Motion doing a reading; sessions from Steve Turner on the Beatles and Johnny Cash; Vic Thiessen on the myth of redemptive violence in film; Jon McGregor ("If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things") on the process of writing; Jim Wallis on God's politics; Juliet Turner singing to an audience of twenty in the Sticky Music tent, with as much commitment as if we were thousands.
No gaming was done, unless you count noodling with an Icehouse solitaire game in a little coffee tent - as always the coloured pyramids drew questions from curious onlookers.
Tag: greenbelt
Many highlights this year: Andrew Motion doing a reading; sessions from Steve Turner on the Beatles and Johnny Cash; Vic Thiessen on the myth of redemptive violence in film; Jon McGregor ("If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things") on the process of writing; Jim Wallis on God's politics; Juliet Turner singing to an audience of twenty in the Sticky Music tent, with as much commitment as if we were thousands.
No gaming was done, unless you count noodling with an Icehouse solitaire game in a little coffee tent - as always the coloured pyramids drew questions from curious onlookers.
Tag: greenbelt
Friday, August 25, 2006
Two Things
1) London is great. Yesterday I discovered a cool little street around the back of Waterloo station called Lower Marsh. It's just a few steps away from the office, and it has several interesting bookshops (a classy independent, a second-hand, a military specialist, and a remainders), a wind instruments shop, and a classical CD shop full of bargains. Lazy lunchbreaks beckon.
2) I'm off to Greenbelt today. I am also taking my wing and may visit a Welsh hill afterwards if the wind is right. See you next week.
2) I'm off to Greenbelt today. I am also taking my wing and may visit a Welsh hill afterwards if the wind is right. See you next week.
Thursday, August 24, 2006
I Remember When This Was All Zines
It was 1990 or thereabouts when I bought a copy of Diplomacy from a toy shop in Salisbury. I think I must have been at a loose end - I remember writing down a list of potential hobbies with "For" and "Against" columns beside each one. I can't remember what the other potential hobbies were, or whether this was before or after my Diplomacy purchase, but it must have been after, because the hobby I was deciding to take up was Postal Diplomacy. Inside my new purchase - the first game I had bought since my teenage years, and the second copy of Diplomacy I had ever owned - was a flyer, written by a man named Danny Collman, who published a zine called "Springboard". I didn't even know what a zine was at the time, but I remember the excitement of receiving Springboard every month. Even now the smell of gestetner ink brings it all flooding back. I remember my first postal Diplomacy game, played to monthly deadlines - it took about 2 years to complete! I used to take a fat folder on the train to work every day with paper, carbon paper, envelopes, stamps, Diplomacy maps, and a bundle of letters from other players that I would sift through, trying to decide who I could trust.
"The Hobby" was very well organised for welcoming newcomers back then - not only was there Danny with his flyer and Springboard, there was also something called.... er.... "The Welcome Pack" (I think) which was a booklet with an introduction to postal gaming, and strategy articles for all 7 powers in Diplomacy. The pack also included a bundle of sample zines, which led to me subscribing to "Electric Monk".
Electric Monk was a very different proposition to Springboard. It was slickly produced on a laser printer as an A5 booklet, illustrated with Calvin and Hobbes cartoons, and each game adjudication included a map - so I didn't have to draw my own any more!
Playing a game in Electric Monk I came up against Vick Hall, who was just starting his own zine "A Little Original Sin". Vick was a persuasive man and before long I found myself producing my own 4-page subzine "The Dissecting Room" which used to go out with ALOS every month. I would laboriously type this up on my Psion Series 3 on the train, print it out back home and literally cut and paste it together with some illustrations before posting it off to Vick. I ran a couple of games - Colonial Diplomacy, and Cannibalism (?) - and found this to be a substantial workload. To this day I don't understand how so many editors managed to faithfully produce their zines month after month, adjudicating dozens of games by hand.
There was a real buzz about the "zine scene" back then. The PC revolution had made it all possible - desktop publishing was an affordable reality at last. But that same revolution, in the shape of the internet, would sweep it all aside by the end of the decade.
I subscribed to other zines as well. "NERTZ (Now Eat The Rabbit)" particularly sticks in my mind. This was the opposite of slick. The insanely clever William Whyte pasted scribbled or badly typed material on top of pages ripped from old comic books. The end result was often deeply unintelligible but fascinating - I used to spend hours poring over NERTZ trying to decipher William's thoughts on "Godel Escher and Bach" or the latest Railway Rivals adjudications.
And then there was ManorCon, The Hobby's annual convention at Birmingham University in leafy Edgbaston, which was an annual pilgrimage for me for many years. 3 days of non-stop gaming, stuffed into a students' dining hall with 300 other sweaty guys on what was always without exception the hottest weekend of the year. Bliss.
There are still a few postal Diplomacy zines around of course, but the excitement has gone out of the scene now. Instead of "wave of the future" the atmosphere is more "hanging on against the odds". It was inevitable I suppose, but I still miss the heady days of the 90's when zines ruled the gaming world. Pass me that bottle of gestetner ink.....
"The Hobby" was very well organised for welcoming newcomers back then - not only was there Danny with his flyer and Springboard, there was also something called.... er.... "The Welcome Pack" (I think) which was a booklet with an introduction to postal gaming, and strategy articles for all 7 powers in Diplomacy. The pack also included a bundle of sample zines, which led to me subscribing to "Electric Monk".
Electric Monk was a very different proposition to Springboard. It was slickly produced on a laser printer as an A5 booklet, illustrated with Calvin and Hobbes cartoons, and each game adjudication included a map - so I didn't have to draw my own any more!
Playing a game in Electric Monk I came up against Vick Hall, who was just starting his own zine "A Little Original Sin". Vick was a persuasive man and before long I found myself producing my own 4-page subzine "The Dissecting Room" which used to go out with ALOS every month. I would laboriously type this up on my Psion Series 3 on the train, print it out back home and literally cut and paste it together with some illustrations before posting it off to Vick. I ran a couple of games - Colonial Diplomacy, and Cannibalism (?) - and found this to be a substantial workload. To this day I don't understand how so many editors managed to faithfully produce their zines month after month, adjudicating dozens of games by hand.
There was a real buzz about the "zine scene" back then. The PC revolution had made it all possible - desktop publishing was an affordable reality at last. But that same revolution, in the shape of the internet, would sweep it all aside by the end of the decade.
I subscribed to other zines as well. "NERTZ (Now Eat The Rabbit)" particularly sticks in my mind. This was the opposite of slick. The insanely clever William Whyte pasted scribbled or badly typed material on top of pages ripped from old comic books. The end result was often deeply unintelligible but fascinating - I used to spend hours poring over NERTZ trying to decipher William's thoughts on "Godel Escher and Bach" or the latest Railway Rivals adjudications.
And then there was ManorCon, The Hobby's annual convention at Birmingham University in leafy Edgbaston, which was an annual pilgrimage for me for many years. 3 days of non-stop gaming, stuffed into a students' dining hall with 300 other sweaty guys on what was always without exception the hottest weekend of the year. Bliss.
There are still a few postal Diplomacy zines around of course, but the excitement has gone out of the scene now. Instead of "wave of the future" the atmosphere is more "hanging on against the odds". It was inevitable I suppose, but I still miss the heady days of the 90's when zines ruled the gaming world. Pass me that bottle of gestetner ink.....
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
Pub Games
I spent a pleasant evening in The Fox in South Farnham yesterday, playing games with the ever-genial Les. Three enjoyable new experiences:
1) Tribute ale from St Austell's in Cornwall.
2) Einfach Genial, the little two-player version. This is Reiner in typical "torture the players" mode - lots of difficult decisions, hard-thinking required. One of those abstract games that is so symmetrical and graceful it almost looks discovered rather than designed. Les beat me, but by the slimmest margin.
3) Um Krone und Kragen, on its first outing since I bought it in a kitchenware shop in Austria. Gorgeous to look at, fast-playing and involving, we enjoyed this a lot. Les got to the King first, and in the final round my 9 6's were beaten by his 10 3's.
There is certainly a category of games I own that I think of as "pub games". To qualify a game must be:
a) For two players. For a relaxing evening with a pint and a friend.
b) Portable. You don't want to be humping a holdall full of big-box games into the bar. The 2-player Kosmos games are ideal. Dvonn and Yinsh, though superb in other ways, are a little too big for this purpose.
c) Compact on the table. You don't want to make yourself a nuisance to other drinkers by spreading out too much. Um Krone und Kragen is almost too spreadout - we were lucky and had a largeish table to ourselves yesterday. BattleLine is just about OK. Blue Moon is ideal.
d) Reasonably short play-time, or at least episodic like Blue Moon so that you have natural breaks for visiting the bar.
e) Not too stretching mentally. You're relaxing with a beer after all. ASL Starter Kit probably disqualifies itself here.
Looking at this list, it strikes me that Magic the Gathering would fit the bill exactly. I have a few decks at home, never used. Must try them out with Les some time.
1) Tribute ale from St Austell's in Cornwall.
2) Einfach Genial, the little two-player version. This is Reiner in typical "torture the players" mode - lots of difficult decisions, hard-thinking required. One of those abstract games that is so symmetrical and graceful it almost looks discovered rather than designed. Les beat me, but by the slimmest margin.
3) Um Krone und Kragen, on its first outing since I bought it in a kitchenware shop in Austria. Gorgeous to look at, fast-playing and involving, we enjoyed this a lot. Les got to the King first, and in the final round my 9 6's were beaten by his 10 3's.
There is certainly a category of games I own that I think of as "pub games". To qualify a game must be:
a) For two players. For a relaxing evening with a pint and a friend.
b) Portable. You don't want to be humping a holdall full of big-box games into the bar. The 2-player Kosmos games are ideal. Dvonn and Yinsh, though superb in other ways, are a little too big for this purpose.
c) Compact on the table. You don't want to make yourself a nuisance to other drinkers by spreading out too much. Um Krone und Kragen is almost too spreadout - we were lucky and had a largeish table to ourselves yesterday. BattleLine is just about OK. Blue Moon is ideal.
d) Reasonably short play-time, or at least episodic like Blue Moon so that you have natural breaks for visiting the bar.
e) Not too stretching mentally. You're relaxing with a beer after all. ASL Starter Kit probably disqualifies itself here.
Looking at this list, it strikes me that Magic the Gathering would fit the bill exactly. I have a few decks at home, never used. Must try them out with Les some time.
Monday, August 21, 2006
Mike Barton has posted three first-class strategy articles about ASL Starter Kit#1 on BGG. Well-written strategy tips always get me drooling to play (or buy) the game. If I was a games company I would send freebies to people like Mike who do so much to keep interest in a game alive.
Friday, August 18, 2006
Work-Game Balance
I had to cancel a gaming session yesterday evening because I was working late. Just how late would only become fully apparent later - I didn't finish until 1am this morning! I was particularly annoyed because I was hosting this session, and so by a universally acknowledged but unwritten rule, I got to choose the game! I was going to put Elasund, or perhaps Tempus, on the table, and was very excited about either of those choices.
This is clearly a sign that my life is seriously out of balance. Which led me to meditate on what would be needed to attain a harmonious Work-Game balance in my life. Here are some of the key requirements that flitted through my mind this morning while I lingered in that horrible post-working-late-exhausted-and-trying-to-sleep-but-still-stoked-on-adrenaline state before drifting off.
1) You need a home of your own, with plenty of storage space (for games) and floor space (for game tables to be set up and left with long running games on them).
2) You probably need to avoid marriage, and you definitely need to avoid having children. The little buggers play havoc with your free time, not to mention choking on your meeples at any opportunity. Ruins the meeples.
3) You don't want a mortgage, as this means you will have to do a proper job with long hours. Note this conflicts slightly with requirement 1.
4) You should choose a quiet little part-time job, somewhere calm like a book-shop or a library where you can think about strategies or your next blog entry.
5) You need lots of disposable income to buy the latest Knizias or to fuel your ASL addiction. A credit card is indispensible for all those online retailers, eBay bargains, and GMT pre-orders. Note this conflicts slightly with requirement 4.
6) You need a regular, satisfying sex-life, so that you don't waste all your evenings chasing women instead of playing games. Note this conflicts slightly with requirement 2. But don't worry guys, this will become less of an issue as you approach old-age.
7) You need lots of opponents living nearby who can also meet these criteria. A friend of mine says that when he wins the lottery he will pay us all a salary so we can play games with him every day. My response is a) you're not going to win the lottery and b) you may have underestimated my hourly rate.
I only meet three of those - I'm not telling you which - no wonder I'm having problems.
This is clearly a sign that my life is seriously out of balance. Which led me to meditate on what would be needed to attain a harmonious Work-Game balance in my life. Here are some of the key requirements that flitted through my mind this morning while I lingered in that horrible post-working-late-exhausted-and-trying-to-sleep-but-still-stoked-on-adrenaline state before drifting off.
1) You need a home of your own, with plenty of storage space (for games) and floor space (for game tables to be set up and left with long running games on them).
2) You probably need to avoid marriage, and you definitely need to avoid having children. The little buggers play havoc with your free time, not to mention choking on your meeples at any opportunity. Ruins the meeples.
3) You don't want a mortgage, as this means you will have to do a proper job with long hours. Note this conflicts slightly with requirement 1.
4) You should choose a quiet little part-time job, somewhere calm like a book-shop or a library where you can think about strategies or your next blog entry.
5) You need lots of disposable income to buy the latest Knizias or to fuel your ASL addiction. A credit card is indispensible for all those online retailers, eBay bargains, and GMT pre-orders. Note this conflicts slightly with requirement 4.
6) You need a regular, satisfying sex-life, so that you don't waste all your evenings chasing women instead of playing games. Note this conflicts slightly with requirement 2. But don't worry guys, this will become less of an issue as you approach old-age.
7) You need lots of opponents living nearby who can also meet these criteria. A friend of mine says that when he wins the lottery he will pay us all a salary so we can play games with him every day. My response is a) you're not going to win the lottery and b) you may have underestimated my hourly rate.
I only meet three of those - I'm not telling you which - no wonder I'm having problems.
Thursday, August 17, 2006
The Ethical Game Shopper
I sometimes wonder about all those plastic soldiers in Memoir 44. I really appreciated the fact that I did not have to remove them all from a sprue before I could play the game - but there must have been a sprue once. You can't make plastic soldiers without a sprue, right? So someone must have painstakingly and carefully taken them off their sprue, one by one, countless thousands of them, day after day. Who did this tedious and finger-hurting job for me? I guess it was someone in China, I wonder if it was a man or a woman or (God forbid) a child? I wonder what sort of room they worked in, was it properly ventilated, with decent toilets available? How many hours a day did they work? Did they get regular breaks? Were they allowed to belong to a union?There are other things I would like to know about the games that I (so obsessively) collect.
All this paper, cardboard and wood, is it made from renewable forests, or even recycled pulp? Where is it made? Is it made in a way that minimizes pollution of the air and the water? How toxic are the paint, ink and bleaching agents used?
How much carbon is released during the manufacture of these games? What about their transport from cheap manufacturers in the East to their markets in Europe and North America? I want to know about game-miles as well as food-miles.
I want to know if the workers who made my games had security of employment, a fair wage, union representation, and reasonable working hours?
On these criteria I suspect that North American wargames (with their ethically dubious themes!) would probably score more highly than many Euros (with their more innocuous themes) which I suspect are often manufactured offshore in order to provide all the pretty bits we love so much at a price we are willing to pay for them.
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
And yes it's Black
Well I finally did it - last week the price of the 30Gb iPod dropped a fiver on Amazon, and that was all the prompting I needed to press the Add to Shopping Basket button. I've got my entire pop/rock collection ripped to disk (but not my much larger classical collection - yet), and I've installed that fairly fragile Yahoo widget for downloading the album art, so I'm all ready to wire myself for sound.
Strangely, I waited until my colleague Mayank was not in the office before making the purchase. I wonder if this indicates a degree of residual guilt at my high levels of elective spending?
Strangely, I waited until my colleague Mayank was not in the office before making the purchase. I wonder if this indicates a degree of residual guilt at my high levels of elective spending?
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
A Weekend in WW2
Today we have a guest posting from my son Phil. There are many great things about Phil, one of which is his liking for tactical wargames. He also has his own blog. Today Phil brings us an after action report from last weekend when we played scenarion S3 "A Simple Equation" from the ASL Starter Kit.It's a rare day when I call my Dad and tell him I "fancy playing a game". However, this weekend the call of the Nimrod was too strong, and I returned to the arena of many a triumph and failure to have a crack at ASL:Starter Kit, one of the least excitingly named games I have ever played.
Dad and I have played this lite version of ASL a couple of times before, and have always enjoyed it, so we had high expectations. Choosing the Aachen scenario, we set up, full of excitement and "Band of Brothers" quotes.
As the Germans, Dad had to defend a large group of buildings at all cost. As the Americans, it was my job to take control of these buildings in a pretty stingy time limit.
It is noteworthy that the first hour was wasted trying to get back to grips with the rules. If this is the simple version, I dread to think what the full, hardcore version is like. I doubt it's much fun.
Halfway through it looked distinctly like I was moving too slowly, probably taking a little too much care over the lives of my men, and worrying too much about maintaining a nice shape. Dad had taken some casualties, but was holding firm, and I hadn't even begun to take objectives.
However, in the last few turns the hard preparatory work paid off, and the Americans broke through the German front line. Once up close and personal, the superior equipment, leaders and morale of the Americans paid off, and with a quick scramble on my last turn I was able to secure the mandatory number of buildings to win!
This is a great game, of that there is no doubt. The rules are sufficiently detailed to challenge, not so crazy as to put you off for life. And the gameplay itself - well, it's fast paced, exciting, and realistic (as far as I can see). Particular respect must be given to the subtle distinctions in the rules: pinned versus broken; first fire, final fire, firing at range; rates of movement; it's all really great at capturing the decisions needed in the middle of battle (again, as far as I can see).
It is possible that the Germans have an impossible task in this scenario. I do think, however, that Dad didn't line up as effectively as he could have, and I think this led to his downfall. Still, he's a worthy adversary, and I thoroughly enjoyed the experience.
Monday, August 14, 2006
Postscript
There was a sign on the door of Playin' Games:
"WANTED STORE MANAGER. Must have relevant experience"
Wow, I thought, that would be fun! I wonder how much it pays? Hmm, I don't have any experience of managing a store. But I could speak knowledgeably about almost any game you have in stock, does that count?
"WANTED STORE MANAGER. Must have relevant experience"
Wow, I thought, that would be fun! I wonder how much it pays? Hmm, I don't have any experience of managing a store. But I could speak knowledgeably about almost any game you have in stock, does that count?
Friday, August 11, 2006
Sashinka, one of my favourite non-game-bloggers, is currently spotting Islamic games in shop windows....
Scoring Opponents
We all used to spend many happy hours browsing the now sadly defunct BoardGameGeek for game ratings, setting great store by the single point difference between a 7.3 and a 7.4, and carefully pushing our own scores into the mix as well. But just as big a factor in my enjoyment of a game session is the quality of my opponents. I would MUCH rather play an average game with a polite, considerate, friendly, speedy opponent, than play a totally excellent game against a whining, over-competitive rules-lawyer with a bag of crisps in his hand.
When BGG comes back (and what if it never comes back? what a terrifying thought! I hope they take regular backups!!) I propose a new ratings system that will allow us to score our opponents as well. The scale would go something like this:
10: Excellent, playing against this person is better than sex.
7: Good, will usually play this person.
5: Average, I can take him or leave him.
3: Truly obnoxious, I will always look for an excuse not to play this person.
1: Last time I played him I changed my mobile phone, my email address, and moved to another town.
When BGG comes back (and what if it never comes back? what a terrifying thought! I hope they take regular backups!!) I propose a new ratings system that will allow us to score our opponents as well. The scale would go something like this:
10: Excellent, playing against this person is better than sex.
7: Good, will usually play this person.
5: Average, I can take him or leave him.
3: Truly obnoxious, I will always look for an excuse not to play this person.
1: Last time I played him I changed my mobile phone, my email address, and moved to another town.
Thursday, August 10, 2006
The Tempus Run
I got out of work early yesterday and strolled over the Hungerford bridge in the sunshine and through Covent Garden towards Belgravia. The destination? A wonderful establishment on Museum Street called Playin' Games. Long-suffering Sue was with me - she very effectively concealed her excitement at her first visit to a full-blown games shop.
A quick scan round the ground floor, then plunging down to the basement where they keep the hard-core stuff - and there it was, a shelf stacked with several new copies of Tempus. So one of those was purchased on the spot - thanks to £35 of eBay takings transferred from my PayPal account - and I also picked up two IceHouse stashes (Black and White). I am noodling with the idea of a Europe Engulfed inspired IceHouse game, and I need a few extra colours. (It's probably totally unacceptable to feel this way, but black would be sooo cool for the Germans!) Looney Labs have started selling their pyramids in mixed colour Treehouse sets, but Playin' Games have a box-full of old-style monochrome stashes at £6 each so get them while you still can!
Then it was over to the Orc's Nest where I put my foot seriously in my mouth by asking if they have any Games Workshop black spray paint. Back came a sniffy response that they "never touch that stuff". Oops! It just looks like the kind of place that would - my mistake. It's funny how much bad feeling about Games Workshop still lingers in certain sections of the hobby.
First impressions of Tempus? Expensive for a Warfrog design - we've got used to these being bargain purchases at the £25 mark. Dodgy graphics - as soon as I opened the box I was wondering what Mike Doyle could do with this. Nice solid components, it's all going to work physically. Easily the most comprehensible ruleset we have seen from Martin Wallace so far. Very simple rules, no stunning new ideas, but I expect it to play nicely as a light empire-building and progression game, sort of in the same space as Vinci, but probably more interesting. Now to persuade my local group to try it.....
A quick scan round the ground floor, then plunging down to the basement where they keep the hard-core stuff - and there it was, a shelf stacked with several new copies of Tempus. So one of those was purchased on the spot - thanks to £35 of eBay takings transferred from my PayPal account - and I also picked up two IceHouse stashes (Black and White). I am noodling with the idea of a Europe Engulfed inspired IceHouse game, and I need a few extra colours. (It's probably totally unacceptable to feel this way, but black would be sooo cool for the Germans!) Looney Labs have started selling their pyramids in mixed colour Treehouse sets, but Playin' Games have a box-full of old-style monochrome stashes at £6 each so get them while you still can!
Then it was over to the Orc's Nest where I put my foot seriously in my mouth by asking if they have any Games Workshop black spray paint. Back came a sniffy response that they "never touch that stuff". Oops! It just looks like the kind of place that would - my mistake. It's funny how much bad feeling about Games Workshop still lingers in certain sections of the hobby.
First impressions of Tempus? Expensive for a Warfrog design - we've got used to these being bargain purchases at the £25 mark. Dodgy graphics - as soon as I opened the box I was wondering what Mike Doyle could do with this. Nice solid components, it's all going to work physically. Easily the most comprehensible ruleset we have seen from Martin Wallace so far. Very simple rules, no stunning new ideas, but I expect it to play nicely as a light empire-building and progression game, sort of in the same space as Vinci, but probably more interesting. Now to persuade my local group to try it.....
Wednesday, August 09, 2006
The Case Against Consimworld, part 2
Let me give you a couple more examples.
Sword of Rome, as published, has a very simple if unusual combat resolution system, which has the possibility of producing surprising outcomes when the opposing forces are strongly mismatched. Now Wray Ferrell had spent the last few years reading and thinking about the period, and many of us were prepared to believe he knew what he was doing. It was simple, it worked as a game, and if there is one thing you learn if you read any history at all, it's not to be surprised by "surprising outcomes". Nevertheless, a small but vocal bunch of grognards set up the cry of "historically inaccurate!" by which they really meant "it doesn't fit with my narrow ideas of how a wargame should work" - I don't believe these people have any serious knowledge of history at all. Poor Wray, a novice designer, caved in to pressure, and now we are all stuck with a messy exception to what was once an elegant and interesting mechanic. What is worse, I believe the end result is possibly less historically accurate than before, as it eliminates the possibility of those shock upsets that are a regular feature of military history.
Barbarossa to Berlin - this time we are dealing with an experienced designer with a stellar reputation. Soon after its release, some grognards on Consimworld started who whine that they had lost as the Soviets because they did not get a big reinforcement card in their initial hand. Ted's reply, very properly, was "It's a card-driven-wargame, one of the skills you need is to play with the hand you're dealt." Nevertheless, the outcry continued, with howls of "It's broken!" In the end Ted allowed himself to be browbeaten into adding a messy mulligan rule, which can have the Soviet player hunting through the deck looking for the card he wants. But why play a card-driven-wargame at all if you want that degree of scripting?
As Chris pointed out in his comments yesterday, what is really needed is for the designers to grow some balls. As an honourable example, I present to you Rick Young, novice (at the time) designer of Europe Engulfed. A large part of his vision for this game was a short rule book, and again and again he faced down demands for exceptions, clarifications and extra chrome from the Consimworld crowd. Unfailingly polite and helpful, he nevertheless refused to let his game be ruined by the vocal minority on the forum. Years of refining and developing the game had obviously given him confidence in his design that after the hue and cry had died down, its excellence would shine through.
Finally, I don't believe that Consimworld represents the whole wargames market, not by a long way. I can think of three of my regular wargaming opponents who never use it, not even as lurkers. Why should their experience of wargaming be spoiled by the vociferous minority rabble on the Consimworld forums?
Sword of Rome, as published, has a very simple if unusual combat resolution system, which has the possibility of producing surprising outcomes when the opposing forces are strongly mismatched. Now Wray Ferrell had spent the last few years reading and thinking about the period, and many of us were prepared to believe he knew what he was doing. It was simple, it worked as a game, and if there is one thing you learn if you read any history at all, it's not to be surprised by "surprising outcomes". Nevertheless, a small but vocal bunch of grognards set up the cry of "historically inaccurate!" by which they really meant "it doesn't fit with my narrow ideas of how a wargame should work" - I don't believe these people have any serious knowledge of history at all. Poor Wray, a novice designer, caved in to pressure, and now we are all stuck with a messy exception to what was once an elegant and interesting mechanic. What is worse, I believe the end result is possibly less historically accurate than before, as it eliminates the possibility of those shock upsets that are a regular feature of military history.
Barbarossa to Berlin - this time we are dealing with an experienced designer with a stellar reputation. Soon after its release, some grognards on Consimworld started who whine that they had lost as the Soviets because they did not get a big reinforcement card in their initial hand. Ted's reply, very properly, was "It's a card-driven-wargame, one of the skills you need is to play with the hand you're dealt." Nevertheless, the outcry continued, with howls of "It's broken!" In the end Ted allowed himself to be browbeaten into adding a messy mulligan rule, which can have the Soviet player hunting through the deck looking for the card he wants. But why play a card-driven-wargame at all if you want that degree of scripting?
As Chris pointed out in his comments yesterday, what is really needed is for the designers to grow some balls. As an honourable example, I present to you Rick Young, novice (at the time) designer of Europe Engulfed. A large part of his vision for this game was a short rule book, and again and again he faced down demands for exceptions, clarifications and extra chrome from the Consimworld crowd. Unfailingly polite and helpful, he nevertheless refused to let his game be ruined by the vocal minority on the forum. Years of refining and developing the game had obviously given him confidence in his design that after the hue and cry had died down, its excellence would shine through.
Finally, I don't believe that Consimworld represents the whole wargames market, not by a long way. I can think of three of my regular wargaming opponents who never use it, not even as lurkers. Why should their experience of wargaming be spoiled by the vociferous minority rabble on the Consimworld forums?
Tuesday, August 08, 2006
Close down Consimworld before it ruins wargaming!
I decided to read through the rules to This Accursed Civil War again, only this time I printed off the latest version from the GMT Games website just to be up-to-date. I was dismayed to find that v4 of the ruleset has bloated to an intimidating 26 pages, from the friendly 16 pages of the original out-of-the-box ruleset.
Even worse, the out-of-the-box rules were gracefully written and easy to understand, but v4 has many passages of almost impenetrable legalese - useful perhaps for a regular player who wants every last exception tied down, but very difficult for the first-time player.
I blame Consimworld.
This is the way it works. The new designer, keen to promote his new game to "the community", spends every spare moment day or night online (nearly losing his job and his marriage in the process), fielding questions from the grognards on the Consimworld forum dedicated to his new baby. He is quickly overwhelmed by a tide of queries, criticisms and suggestions from a small but vocal minority of "fans", who are usually only interested in competitive, tournament play, and who specialize in rules-lawyering and loophole-finding. Invisible to the designer is the silent majority of gamers who are happy to play the game as a friendly, sociable contest with a like-minded friend, and who have no interest in bending the rules or maintaining weird readings of ambiguous wordings in the face of all common-sense. The inexperienced designer, anxious to please, starts to make on-the-fly rulings, rewording rules, adding new rules, or even redrafting whole sections to meet the loadly articulated requirements of the tiny but vocal minority. And before you know it an elegant, beginner-friendly 16-page ruleset has mutated into a 26-page legal document.
The answer: close down Consimworld. It's damaging our hobby. Deny the grognards a platform. Now, before it's too late.
Even worse, the out-of-the-box rules were gracefully written and easy to understand, but v4 has many passages of almost impenetrable legalese - useful perhaps for a regular player who wants every last exception tied down, but very difficult for the first-time player.
I blame Consimworld.
This is the way it works. The new designer, keen to promote his new game to "the community", spends every spare moment day or night online (nearly losing his job and his marriage in the process), fielding questions from the grognards on the Consimworld forum dedicated to his new baby. He is quickly overwhelmed by a tide of queries, criticisms and suggestions from a small but vocal minority of "fans", who are usually only interested in competitive, tournament play, and who specialize in rules-lawyering and loophole-finding. Invisible to the designer is the silent majority of gamers who are happy to play the game as a friendly, sociable contest with a like-minded friend, and who have no interest in bending the rules or maintaining weird readings of ambiguous wordings in the face of all common-sense. The inexperienced designer, anxious to please, starts to make on-the-fly rulings, rewording rules, adding new rules, or even redrafting whole sections to meet the loadly articulated requirements of the tiny but vocal minority. And before you know it an elegant, beginner-friendly 16-page ruleset has mutated into a 26-page legal document.
The answer: close down Consimworld. It's damaging our hobby. Deny the grognards a platform. Now, before it's too late.
Monday, August 07, 2006
Andy Looney's perfect travelling companion
Treehouse proved to be a great portable game - 9 Icehouse pieces, a small d6, a printout of the rules, all stuffed into a small dice bag, it sat happily in the lid of my rucksack with no perceptible increase in the load. The game proved popular with Sue, who feels less intimidated by games with a reasonable quota of luck, and we played on four separate evenings, sitting in pubs or hostels after a long day tramping St Cuthbert's Way.
Treehouse (like most of Andy Looney's games) has no strategic planning, but it has nice little tactical puzzles along the way, and each round only takes a few minutes to complete. Best of all it cost me nothing (except a little ink to print out the rules) since I already own Zendo.
Question: should I go through BoardGameGeek marking as "owned" all the Icehouse games I can play with my Zendo stashes? It would seriously inflate my totals....
Treehouse (like most of Andy Looney's games) has no strategic planning, but it has nice little tactical puzzles along the way, and each round only takes a few minutes to complete. Best of all it cost me nothing (except a little ink to print out the rules) since I already own Zendo.
Question: should I go through BoardGameGeek marking as "owned" all the Icehouse games I can play with my Zendo stashes? It would seriously inflate my totals....
Friday, July 28, 2006
I have next week booked off work and lots of geeky things I would love to do in it - repainting my Sauron figures from War of the Ring, carefully punching out and trimming those beautiful counters in This Accursed Civil War, playing C&C Ancients on Vassal or Amun Re by email, soloing a few ASL Starter Kit scenarios......
Sadly it's not to be. I am travelling up to Melrose in Scotland on Saturday with Sue for a week's walking holiday. Fresh air, exercise, beautiful scenery...... but no gaming for a week.
Sigh......
Tag: boardgames
Sadly it's not to be. I am travelling up to Melrose in Scotland on Saturday with Sue for a week's walking holiday. Fresh air, exercise, beautiful scenery...... but no gaming for a week.
Sigh......
Tag: boardgames
I enjoyed Canal Mania quite a lot. I like network building games (I "grew up" with 1830 and Railway Rivals) and this one has a lot going for it. I like way the Contracts restrict your building choices - it's not just a free-for-all like RR - and I like the way that your card drafting choices can also manipulate the placement of goods. However the turn-order is fixed and seems to have a big influence on your chances - the guy who plays last gets a pretty raw deal on goods movement, though he does get the pick of the engineers as compensation. The turn-order thing felt a bit old-fashioned, even RR rotates who goes first anti-clockwise.
I came in 3rd out of 5, but I was only 4 points behind the winner, and felt I had a good chance of winning all the way through.
We had an issue with playing-time. On the box it says "About 2 hours" but we took nearly 3 and a half! I was getting a bit weary of it all by the end. But I think this was more to do with our group than the game - we hadn't met for a while, and everyone was in the mood for a friendly chat.
Tag: boardgames
I came in 3rd out of 5, but I was only 4 points behind the winner, and felt I had a good chance of winning all the way through.
We had an issue with playing-time. On the box it says "About 2 hours" but we took nearly 3 and a half! I was getting a bit weary of it all by the end. But I think this was more to do with our group than the game - we hadn't met for a while, and everyone was in the mood for a friendly chat.
Tag: boardgames
Thursday, July 27, 2006
Playing another new game tonight with the local group - Canal Mania. I love my gaming group to bits and wouldn't change them for the world, but sometimes I think they are a little.... erm.... flighty. Always trying the next thing, always learning a new game, only to play it once then move on to the next thing. Surely all this restless searching must have an objective - to find one of the truly great games that deserves repeated play and study?
And I am just as bad. I was in Covent Garden yesterday evening and just "popped into" The Orc's Nest. What a great little shop, with a nice selection of boardgames crammed into the shelves upstairs. It was so tempting to buy something - another new game, Louis XIV perhaps, or Warrior Knights, just to try it out. But I resisted - really, I have enough truly excellent games in my collection already. I just need to play them.
Another thought - perhaps this is why I am feeling drawn towards wargaming at the moment? The investment in terms of learning a new wargame is so much greater than for a Euro, that you have to get a few replays to make all that study worthwhile.
Tag: boardgames
And I am just as bad. I was in Covent Garden yesterday evening and just "popped into" The Orc's Nest. What a great little shop, with a nice selection of boardgames crammed into the shelves upstairs. It was so tempting to buy something - another new game, Louis XIV perhaps, or Warrior Knights, just to try it out. But I resisted - really, I have enough truly excellent games in my collection already. I just need to play them.
Another thought - perhaps this is why I am feeling drawn towards wargaming at the moment? The investment in terms of learning a new wargame is so much greater than for a Euro, that you have to get a few replays to make all that study worthwhile.
Tag: boardgames
Dave the Dark Lord
Dave drove over from Salisbury on Tuesday evening for a game of War of the Ring. I was looking forward to playing with my painted figures, but didn't anticipate the effects of this heat. When I opened up the box I found that the Sauron figures, which I had rather over-varnished, were sticky and had stuck to each other in the box. I managed to get them untangled and set up on the table by the time Dave arrived, but it looks like I will be cleaning the Sauron figures off with white spirit and re-doing the paint job. Sigh.
Dave took the Shadow this time and initially went for a heavy hunt strategy, which made life very difficult for my Fellowship - Gandalf died when they got revealed in Hollin, and they took a few more hits getting though Moria. Then as Dave got into the military side of the game the Fellowship got a reprieve and made good progress towards the Morannon. The fighting was going badly for me - my double Ent play failed to kill Saruman, and Minas Tirith fell, shortly followed by Dale, Erebor and the Woodland Realm. But I got lots of dagger dice on my final two turns which enabled a swift rush through Mordor. But it was a very close thing - Dave was only a couple of actions away from taking Dol Amroth and victory when I reached the Cracks of Doom, just in the nick of time!
I love this game and feel no desire at the moment to buy the expansion set, it seems just perfect the way it is.
Tag: boardgames
Dave took the Shadow this time and initially went for a heavy hunt strategy, which made life very difficult for my Fellowship - Gandalf died when they got revealed in Hollin, and they took a few more hits getting though Moria. Then as Dave got into the military side of the game the Fellowship got a reprieve and made good progress towards the Morannon. The fighting was going badly for me - my double Ent play failed to kill Saruman, and Minas Tirith fell, shortly followed by Dale, Erebor and the Woodland Realm. But I got lots of dagger dice on my final two turns which enabled a swift rush through Mordor. But it was a very close thing - Dave was only a couple of actions away from taking Dol Amroth and victory when I reached the Cracks of Doom, just in the nick of time!
I love this game and feel no desire at the moment to buy the expansion set, it seems just perfect the way it is.
Tag: boardgames
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
Black is the New White
Pricerunner says that a white 30Gb iPod will cost you £150, whereas a black 30Gb iPod (identical spec) will cost you £180.
That says one thing to me - no-one wants white Apple stuff any more.
In the meantime, I am laboriously ripping my CD collection. The rule of deferred gratification says that only, repeat only when I have ripped ALL of my CD's, will I allow myself to buy myself an iPod.
That says one thing to me - no-one wants white Apple stuff any more.
In the meantime, I am laboriously ripping my CD collection. The rule of deferred gratification says that only, repeat only when I have ripped ALL of my CD's, will I allow myself to buy myself an iPod.
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
Swimming with Grebes
Went swimming Monday evening after work at Frensham Great Pond with Mum and Sue. Sue, who instigated the expedition, is crazy about freshwater swimming, and liable to jump at short notice into any stretch of open water she comes across.
There is a miniature sandy beach running down to the water, which was lovely and warm. The highlight was being in the water a few yards from a family of Great Crested Grebes - two adults working hard to feed their extremely noisy and persistent brood.
A sunset picnic finished off a perfect evening.
There is a miniature sandy beach running down to the water, which was lovely and warm. The highlight was being in the water a few yards from a family of Great Crested Grebes - two adults working hard to feed their extremely noisy and persistent brood.
A sunset picnic finished off a perfect evening.
Reading the Rules Again for the First Time
If you are a Type A gamer then reading rules will be a big part of your gaming life, accounting for a significant portion of the hours that you spend on your hobby.
A Type A gamer, in case you're not familiar with this classification (which is likely since I just made it up), is the kind of gamer who spends hard-earned money on his game collection, often hosts his game group, is likely to be the one who suggests what the group plays, has the game set up when everyone arrives, and is the one who explains the rules and gets everyone ready to play - and usually loses. A Type B gamer is the kind who only owns 2 games, doesn't care what gets played, just turns up and lets someone tell him how it works, no-one has ever seen where he lives - and he usually wins.
Over the course of my life I have spent many happy hours reading rules - which tells you which type of gamer I am. From preparing to play Red Star White Star with a school friend many years ago, right down to yesterday and completing my first read-through of This Accursed Civil War. It's a part of our hobby which gets scant attention, yet consumes many hours, and can be anticipatory fun or headache-inducing toil.
I think my favourite rules in terms of layout and useability are the Alea big boxes like Ra or Puerto Rico. Those summary side-bars are inspired, they make it so easy to just quickly review the rules before you play it again after a break.
Many wargame rules suffer in comparison with German games. Empire of the Sun and Grand Illusion have both recently defeated me by just being so long and impenetrable.
When you read a new set of rules you are attempting to imagine how the mechanics of this game work, picturing the pieces and how they are allowed to move on the board. For a wargame you want to know how many pieces you can stack together; does facing matter? do they have zones of control? how is combat resolved? are there markers that sit on units to mark morale or losses? will it all become unmanageable? how does retreat work? what is the sequence of play?
Nothing destroys my enthusiasm for a new game faster than errors in the rules. If I notice obvious mistakes or ambiguities on my first read-through, the game is likely to hit eBay in the near future. The same goes for big errata sheets posted on the web, or an impression that the designer is struggling to fix serious balance issues, or if the rules seem to be a moving target, with a new version posted every time you look. This was what killed my interest in Barbarossa to Berlin.
The order in which the rules are presented makes a big difference. For the first read-through, it helps a lot if they are sequenced to tell an unfolding story that makes sense. If rules refer forwards all the time to rules that come later, they will be very hard to understand on a first read-through.
This Accursed Civil War and Von Manstein's Backhand Blow are two rulesets that I have read recently that made good sense to me on the first read-through. The rules to The Napoleonic Wars on the other hand, made very little sense to me even after I had played the game 5 or 6 times!
Even the physical quality of the rules makes a difference. If they are printed on nice thick creamy paper with beautiful illustrations, it makes a big difference to how I feel about a game. Likewise with layout, font, brevity, and English style. Columbia Games score highly in this area.
The next step is to punch out the counters and set the game up on the table. Run through a few turns solo, then go back and read the rules again from front to back. You'll be amazed how many little things you got wrong, and this second reading will start to cement the game in your head. Internalize it as the grognards say.
Once you have mastered a game your requirements change. Now you need rules that are organized according to the sequence of play. A good index is essential, so are well-designed and accurate play-aids. You need to be able to find the information you want quickly. (Full marks to Commands and Colors Ancients for its superb play-aids.) Repetition is a killer in this respect. If the rules you want are repeated in several different sections, with subtle differences between them, confusion and disillusion awaits. See Empire of the Sun for example.
And please leave out the chatty asides and so-called "jokes" that pad out the rules with useless text. (Richard Berg are you listening?) Likewise historical notes or justifications for design decisions should be removed from the body of the rules - to the designers notes or a separate playbook.
One final dilemma - should I fold back the pages of a new rules booklet? I want it to stay pristine and new. But by the time I'm playing the game for real the rules will be starting to get a bit dog-eared and worn, and besides, a back-folded rules booklet takes up half the space on the table. So I usually end up folding them back at some point - it's a sign of a well-loved game.
Tag: boardgames
A Type A gamer, in case you're not familiar with this classification (which is likely since I just made it up), is the kind of gamer who spends hard-earned money on his game collection, often hosts his game group, is likely to be the one who suggests what the group plays, has the game set up when everyone arrives, and is the one who explains the rules and gets everyone ready to play - and usually loses. A Type B gamer is the kind who only owns 2 games, doesn't care what gets played, just turns up and lets someone tell him how it works, no-one has ever seen where he lives - and he usually wins.
Over the course of my life I have spent many happy hours reading rules - which tells you which type of gamer I am. From preparing to play Red Star White Star with a school friend many years ago, right down to yesterday and completing my first read-through of This Accursed Civil War. It's a part of our hobby which gets scant attention, yet consumes many hours, and can be anticipatory fun or headache-inducing toil.
I think my favourite rules in terms of layout and useability are the Alea big boxes like Ra or Puerto Rico. Those summary side-bars are inspired, they make it so easy to just quickly review the rules before you play it again after a break.
Many wargame rules suffer in comparison with German games. Empire of the Sun and Grand Illusion have both recently defeated me by just being so long and impenetrable.
When you read a new set of rules you are attempting to imagine how the mechanics of this game work, picturing the pieces and how they are allowed to move on the board. For a wargame you want to know how many pieces you can stack together; does facing matter? do they have zones of control? how is combat resolved? are there markers that sit on units to mark morale or losses? will it all become unmanageable? how does retreat work? what is the sequence of play?
Nothing destroys my enthusiasm for a new game faster than errors in the rules. If I notice obvious mistakes or ambiguities on my first read-through, the game is likely to hit eBay in the near future. The same goes for big errata sheets posted on the web, or an impression that the designer is struggling to fix serious balance issues, or if the rules seem to be a moving target, with a new version posted every time you look. This was what killed my interest in Barbarossa to Berlin.
The order in which the rules are presented makes a big difference. For the first read-through, it helps a lot if they are sequenced to tell an unfolding story that makes sense. If rules refer forwards all the time to rules that come later, they will be very hard to understand on a first read-through.
This Accursed Civil War and Von Manstein's Backhand Blow are two rulesets that I have read recently that made good sense to me on the first read-through. The rules to The Napoleonic Wars on the other hand, made very little sense to me even after I had played the game 5 or 6 times!
Even the physical quality of the rules makes a difference. If they are printed on nice thick creamy paper with beautiful illustrations, it makes a big difference to how I feel about a game. Likewise with layout, font, brevity, and English style. Columbia Games score highly in this area.
The next step is to punch out the counters and set the game up on the table. Run through a few turns solo, then go back and read the rules again from front to back. You'll be amazed how many little things you got wrong, and this second reading will start to cement the game in your head. Internalize it as the grognards say.
Once you have mastered a game your requirements change. Now you need rules that are organized according to the sequence of play. A good index is essential, so are well-designed and accurate play-aids. You need to be able to find the information you want quickly. (Full marks to Commands and Colors Ancients for its superb play-aids.) Repetition is a killer in this respect. If the rules you want are repeated in several different sections, with subtle differences between them, confusion and disillusion awaits. See Empire of the Sun for example.
And please leave out the chatty asides and so-called "jokes" that pad out the rules with useless text. (Richard Berg are you listening?) Likewise historical notes or justifications for design decisions should be removed from the body of the rules - to the designers notes or a separate playbook.
One final dilemma - should I fold back the pages of a new rules booklet? I want it to stay pristine and new. But by the time I'm playing the game for real the rules will be starting to get a bit dog-eared and worn, and besides, a back-folded rules booklet takes up half the space on the table. So I usually end up folding them back at some point - it's a sign of a well-loved game.
Tag: boardgames
Friday, July 21, 2006
The Quest for Civ-Lite
With all the excitement of Tempus about to arrive, I've been reminded of the ongoing quest for Civilization Lite - the nostalgia that many of us more... ahem... mature gamers have for remembered late-night Civilization sessions when we were young in years, poor in money, but rich in time. Many commercial attempts have been made over the last few years to reproduce the Civ experience in a Euro-sized package: Mare Nostrum, Vinci, Antike, Manifest Destiny, and now Tempus. I have been wondering about another approach. Would it be possible to make a variant on Civilization that keeps the elegance and balance and epic scope of the game, but cuts out some of the time-consuming fiddle, perhaps refactors or reprices some of the elements of the game, and so carefully and respectfully trims it down to a manageable but satisfying 2 or 3 hours?
So far I have just been musing on possibilities. Here are some of the half-baked ideas I have come up with so far:
Reduce the number of turns, but keep them interesting. Also make each turn shorter.
Increase the breeding rate, perhaps double the number of tokens each turn with no cap.
Reduce city build and city support costs to 5.
Shorten the AST.
Recalibrate the catastrophes to make them less severe, especially Civil War. Also less time-consuming to resolve.
Reprice the Civilization cards.
Limit the game to fewer players (2 to 4?)
Smaller map (use the smaller areas on the Gibsons map).
Use a timer to limit trade sessions?
Drop the ships. Allow units 1 or 2 extra moves if along coastline, modified by Cloth and Astronomy. Modify the Piracy event.
Simplify the census. Count something else - number of cities? number of Civ cards? Position on AST?
Reduce the number of tokens in stock.
Allow catchup movement on AST. Discard a Civ card to move forward an extra step??
Abolish the AST altogether? Use Civ cards value as Victory/end of game condition??
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
Reading rules on the train
Now I have a 50 minute train trip in to the Shell Centre at Waterloo every day, that gives me 1h40m of reading time every day. I've been frittering that away reading second-rate "classics" such as Philip Pullman's "Dark Materials" trilogy, or the real thing like Ursula LeGuin's "Wizard of Earthsea" (which explains why Pullman is seeming slightly weak by comparison). But I've decided to take a break from "litritcher" and read something more useful for a few days - game rules!
So the following rulebooks were stuffed into my bag this morning in the slot where "The Subtle Knife" usually sits:
Commands & Colors Ancients: Yes I've already played this quite a bit, but I just want to make sure I'm getting it absolutely right. I've already noticed some subtleties about elephants battling back with slightly different rules to when they are the attacker. And the current noise on BGG about leader loss makes me want to go back to the rules before I get too confused.
ASL Starter Kit 2: Time I got this punched out and on the table - it's been sitting on my shelf for at least a year. Reading the rules is a good first step.
This Accursed Civil War: Time I got this punched out and on the table - it's been sitting on my shelf for at least a year. Reading the rules is a good first step. (Sorry, am I repeating myself?)
Before next Tuesday I also need to look over the rules for War of the Ring again, as Dave is coming over to Farnham to play this with me. It will be embarrassing, not to mention time-wasting, if I am umming and ahhing over the rules.
Tag: boardgames
So the following rulebooks were stuffed into my bag this morning in the slot where "The Subtle Knife" usually sits:
Commands & Colors Ancients: Yes I've already played this quite a bit, but I just want to make sure I'm getting it absolutely right. I've already noticed some subtleties about elephants battling back with slightly different rules to when they are the attacker. And the current noise on BGG about leader loss makes me want to go back to the rules before I get too confused.
ASL Starter Kit 2: Time I got this punched out and on the table - it's been sitting on my shelf for at least a year. Reading the rules is a good first step.
This Accursed Civil War: Time I got this punched out and on the table - it's been sitting on my shelf for at least a year. Reading the rules is a good first step. (Sorry, am I repeating myself?)
Before next Tuesday I also need to look over the rules for War of the Ring again, as Dave is coming over to Farnham to play this with me. It will be embarrassing, not to mention time-wasting, if I am umming and ahhing over the rules.
Tag: boardgames
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
I decided to cancel my pre-order for Combat Commander. I've got Memoir 44 if I want fast and furious World War 2 playtime, and I've got the ASL Starter Kits if I want to immerse myself in the ultimate World War 2 serious tactical study game (note to self: and it's about time I did). Combat Commander seems to fall midway between the two, and they have already announced the first expansion game (Vol II Mediterranean) - the last thing I need right now is three tactical World War 2 completist obsessions.
Tag: boardgames
Tag: boardgames
Monday, July 17, 2006
While we are on the subject of Commands and Colors, if you are a completist like me, Memoir 44 is becoming a bit of a nightmare. The very day that I ordered the Terrain Pack to complete (so I thought) my set of expansions, I discover that the Pacific War expansion is available. I must have it of course, even though I haven't even started on the Eastern Front scenarios yet.
And now I find that World of Wonder are planning a Memoir 44 wooden carry-case to hold all this stuff. With model planes and extra rules just to make the thing indispensible. This is definitely feeding the same instinct that I believe makes ASL so popular - it's not playing the game that they enjoy, it's sorting all the stuff into carefully labelled fishing tackle boxes, and the feeling that you can pack the whole of World War 2 into the boot of your car and take it with you on holiday.....
Tag: boardgames
And now I find that World of Wonder are planning a Memoir 44 wooden carry-case to hold all this stuff. With model planes and extra rules just to make the thing indispensible. This is definitely feeding the same instinct that I believe makes ASL so popular - it's not playing the game that they enjoy, it's sorting all the stuff into carefully labelled fishing tackle boxes, and the feeling that you can pack the whole of World War 2 into the boot of your car and take it with you on holiday.....
Tag: boardgames
Saturday, July 15, 2006
Talking of Ancients, I connected to ConSimWorld this week for the first time in many months, to have a look at the Ancients forum. This posting should be read by anyone interested in the game. It's a list (and what a list!) of all the scenarios to be included in the first expansion. No less than 20 battles, including all the big ones like Issus, Gaugamela, Marathon, Plataea..... And again, 3 bonus scenarios if you pre-order. (Like I have, he says smugly!)
Tag: boardgames
Tag: boardgames
Friday, July 14, 2006
C&C Ancients - against a real person!
It all worked out just as I had planned......
I lured Phil over to my flat yesterday evening with the promise of interesting beer, and before he knew what had happened he was setting up his Romans on the field of Beneventum. I was hoping for some more aggression from Phil, but he mirrored my slow build up - a bit of cavalry and elephant action on my left wing while we both got our lines organised ready for "the moment". My "Darken the Skies" card did little more than introduce a brief slightly overcast spell, but I had the "Line Command" card available at just the right time. My warriors and heavies did terrible damage in that first impact. Nevertheless, there was chaos in the turns that followed and opportunity for Phil to get his magic 3 flags, that brought him up to 6 cards. But as I crept ahead again he made the mistake of trying to save the day with his light troops - threw them away in futile close combat against my weakened warriors and heavies, and handed me the battle prematurely.
Loved it. We both did. What a great wargame this is.
Tag: boardgames
I lured Phil over to my flat yesterday evening with the promise of interesting beer, and before he knew what had happened he was setting up his Romans on the field of Beneventum. I was hoping for some more aggression from Phil, but he mirrored my slow build up - a bit of cavalry and elephant action on my left wing while we both got our lines organised ready for "the moment". My "Darken the Skies" card did little more than introduce a brief slightly overcast spell, but I had the "Line Command" card available at just the right time. My warriors and heavies did terrible damage in that first impact. Nevertheless, there was chaos in the turns that followed and opportunity for Phil to get his magic 3 flags, that brought him up to 6 cards. But as I crept ahead again he made the mistake of trying to save the day with his light troops - threw them away in futile close combat against my weakened warriors and heavies, and handed me the battle prematurely.
Loved it. We both did. What a great wargame this is.
Tag: boardgames
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
I have started and intend to continue bingeing on solo Ancients this week. This game is so fascinating. I was playing the Ilpa scenario last night, and spending time with both sides to get my lines organised into an effective shape. In the end there were two long lines of infantry ready to crash into each other. The Carthaginians just lost with a rash decision to snatch a victory by using with an "Order Light Troops" card. Lesson learned: don't attempt to use light units as shock troops, even against weakened targets.I am developing a style of play that takes the time to get my lines and my cards organised before moving in for the big attack. Of course this works solo because I am letting me get away with it (if you see what I mean). I desperately need an aggressive real opponent to test this style out against, and I am attempting to lure one of my offspring over to my home this week to provide such testing.
Everything you read about the physical quality of this game is true - map unmounted, dice need replacing, stickers lose their colour or even their stick - it doesn't really matter. The game is superb - a fascinating period, fast to play, tactically extremely challenging, and great great fun.
Tag: boardgames
I played Maharaja last week with some friends from the London Mennonite Centre. Mennonites may be pacifists, but let me tell you that they are not above some low-level whining. Thankfully, this wasn't your toxic, overbearing whining that makes me want to gnash my teeth, rend my garments, toss the board into the air and run out of the room screaming denunciations. It was more of a good-natured, background grumbling that wasn't too hard to bear, was even fairly humorous. I think the difference is, no-one was seriously trying to use whining to affect the outcome of the game, it was more of a faintly depressive character trait in some of the players. Who knows, perhaps this gentle pessimism really is a Mennonite thing?Maharaja struck me as a strange game, sort of like Taj Mahal only clunkier. The stroke of brilliance is the little dials - these allow everyone to make their big decisions in parallel, not in serial as in most games, which saves a lot of waiting around for other players to think. I came in a pretty poor third, which always lowers my initial opinion of a game, but I was intrigued enough to want to try it again some time. (But only if Taj Mahal is not available!)
Tag: boardgames
As August arrives I start to get seriously excited about Greenbelt. Since I discovered it three years ago, the festival has been a vital part of my Christian walk, enthusing me, challenging me, irritating me and informing me in equal measures. Already I have many happy memories of Greenbelt - sitting in an inflatable church (!) listenening to a panel of writers enthusing about science fiction - singing "Jerusalem" at the top of my voice with Billy Bragg - praying my way round the Chartres Labyrinth - sharing a curry supper with more people than I would have thought it was possible to feed from a couple of camping stoves - yelling my heart out to "Letter from America" at an uproarious Proclaimers concert - listening to Gareth Higgins open windows in my mind, convincing me that it's possible to love God AND cinema......
I love the atmosphere at Greenbelt, the heady mixture of new ideas, great (and not so great) music, passion for justice, inclusivity, alternative worship, sunshine, good food, and basic sanitation - it all smells to me like an authentic whiff of Kingdom living, a foretaste of what life under God's rule could be like.
Have a look at the website at www.greenbelt.org.uk and get yourself a ticket for this year's festival (25-28 August at Cheltenham Racecourse). Maybe one day we will have a circle of tents at Greenbelt, with the banner of "Nimrods" fluttering overhead?
Tag: greenbelt
I love the atmosphere at Greenbelt, the heady mixture of new ideas, great (and not so great) music, passion for justice, inclusivity, alternative worship, sunshine, good food, and basic sanitation - it all smells to me like an authentic whiff of Kingdom living, a foretaste of what life under God's rule could be like.
Have a look at the website at www.greenbelt.org.uk and get yourself a ticket for this year's festival (25-28 August at Cheltenham Racecourse). Maybe one day we will have a circle of tents at Greenbelt, with the banner of "Nimrods" fluttering overhead?
Tag: greenbelt
Wednesday, July 05, 2006
UKUK!
While I was in Austria waiting for a flyable day I bought Um Krone und Kragen (from a local kitchen shop!) and spent several happy hours attempting to decipher the rules and playing it through solo. When I got home I downloaded a translation and discovered to my amazement that I was getting it roughly right.This is one of the most beautifully produced small-box games I have come across. The cards are stunning - gorgeous images on sturdy durable cardstock. "Yahtzee on steroids" is a fair summary of how it plays. It looks fascinating to me - a filler with depth and replayability - and I hope to introduce it to the local group as soon as I can (if they ever stop taking holidays and watching football that is!)
Tag: boardgames
Jumping off mountains
On Saturday I got back from a week paragliding at Mayhofen in the Ziller Valley in Austria. On the minus side, three and a half of my six days were blown out - too windy or unstable to fly safely. This was very frustrating, especially as these dangerous days in the Alps can look just fine - clear blue skies, sunshine, hardly any wind - but strong southerly winds at high levels can produce massive turbulence reaching down into the valleys to catch out the unwary. On Wednesday morning for example we went up the gondola to Penken to have a look, Kelly pronounced the day "toast, man", the others went back down after coffee to find something else to do, while I spent the whole day up there sheltering from the sunshine, watching the marmots and buzzards, and even grinding my teeth in frustration as two paragliders set up their wings and flew down into the valley - apparently unscathed.
On the plus side, when we did get the go-ahead to fly, it was simply awesome. Even a simple top-to-bottom - launching at 6000ft, flying out over the woods and cliffs towards the valley floor 4000ft below - took nearly half an hour and was an incredible experience. And I had a couple of flights where I was managing to get at least some lift from small thermals along the way, though the conditions were generally very light.
I have had three foreign trips now since I qualified last autumn. I suppose I thought that getting away from England would guarantee endless days of perfect flying conditions, but the reality is that wherever you go, you are in the hands of fickle weather conditions. This sport requires huge reserves of patience wherever you go. And of course a blown-out day in Austria is costing you a whole lot more money than a blown-out day in England!
For comparison here are the figures:
November 2005
Lanzarote (Green Dragons)
Blown out days: 1 out of 6
Flying time: 4.5 hrs
Highlights: reaching cloudbase; great company
May 2006
Dune de Pyla (Flight Culture)
Blown out days: almost 6 out of 6
Flying time: 15 mins
Highlights: lots of ground handling; amazing food
June 2006
Zillertal (Austrian Arena)
Blown out days: 3.5 out of 6
Flying time: 3 hrs
Highlights: massive heights; losing my red ribbon!
Tag: paragliding
On the plus side, when we did get the go-ahead to fly, it was simply awesome. Even a simple top-to-bottom - launching at 6000ft, flying out over the woods and cliffs towards the valley floor 4000ft below - took nearly half an hour and was an incredible experience. And I had a couple of flights where I was managing to get at least some lift from small thermals along the way, though the conditions were generally very light.
I have had three foreign trips now since I qualified last autumn. I suppose I thought that getting away from England would guarantee endless days of perfect flying conditions, but the reality is that wherever you go, you are in the hands of fickle weather conditions. This sport requires huge reserves of patience wherever you go. And of course a blown-out day in Austria is costing you a whole lot more money than a blown-out day in England!
For comparison here are the figures:
November 2005
Lanzarote (Green Dragons)
Blown out days: 1 out of 6
Flying time: 4.5 hrs
Highlights: reaching cloudbase; great company
May 2006
Dune de Pyla (Flight Culture)
Blown out days: almost 6 out of 6
Flying time: 15 mins
Highlights: lots of ground handling; amazing food
June 2006
Zillertal (Austrian Arena)
Blown out days: 3.5 out of 6
Flying time: 3 hrs
Highlights: massive heights; losing my red ribbon!
Tag: paragliding
Friday, June 23, 2006
Slim pickings
Recent gaming includes a couple of games of the new Lord of the Rings Confrontation with Les in the pub the other evening, followed by a weird abstract insect thing, erm.....Hive! I remember! Confrontation was good, but....bulky. In spite of the extras, I still prefer the charm of the little box which made it an ideal "take it to the pub in case" game.
I also played through Elasund solo the last couple of days. Looks promising. I like the Settlers thing of always starting your turn with a dice roll. Never mind thinking, just roll the dice! Eases you into your turn gently, I like that.
I read the latest GMT flyer from cover to cover. It had the same effect it always has on me....desperate to buy wargames....desperate to punch out wargames languishing on my shelves....desperate to read about wargames - poring over old C3i's at breakfast....above all, desperate for a wargames opponent....
But not just yet. The sun is shining and I'm off to Austria tomorrow, with my paraglider and only hand luggage for T-shirts and pants. Back in a week....
Tag: paragliding
I also played through Elasund solo the last couple of days. Looks promising. I like the Settlers thing of always starting your turn with a dice roll. Never mind thinking, just roll the dice! Eases you into your turn gently, I like that.
I read the latest GMT flyer from cover to cover. It had the same effect it always has on me....desperate to buy wargames....desperate to punch out wargames languishing on my shelves....desperate to read about wargames - poring over old C3i's at breakfast....above all, desperate for a wargames opponent....
But not just yet. The sun is shining and I'm off to Austria tomorrow, with my paraglider and only hand luggage for T-shirts and pants. Back in a week....
Tag: paragliding
Sunday, June 18, 2006
NimrodCon never fails to surprise. Every year we go to the same place (a self-catering cottage in Hay-on-Wye), with roughly the same people (the gaming group that used to meet in Salisbury), and with the same general idea (books, beer and boardgames). But every year it turns out a little unexpectedly. This time there were three new factors: more women (we must be upping our social skills); amazing weather; and the World Cup. All conspired to keep people away from the game tables and out in the Black Mountains, swimming in the river, or in the pub watching the match. Nevertheless, in spite of all these obstacles, all these ways that people found of having a good time without the use of a board or dice, some gaming was fitted in somehow. Some of the games that were played over the four days:
Command and Colors Ancients: This was a big hit, convincing even John (who knows a lot about the period and who has played a lot of 7th Edition and DBM in his time) in the end. I played three games, coaching three different new players, losing every one, but enjoying each one immensely.
Settlers of the Stone Age: reminded me that even a really good German game can be ruined if someone is determined to play as if it is Diplomacy.
San Juan: This is really good, we enjoyed the first one so much (sitting out on the balcony in the sunshine) that we went round and played it again immediately.
Attika: played this twice on Monday morning, in the final burst of gaming that came when we realized it was nearly time to go. Last time I played it (at Baycon) it was a confusing maze, this time it all clicked into place and I won easily - twice in a row!
Dvonn: a lot of this was played by various people in odd moments on the grass or in the pub. I played once against Gavin and won - but only just! I think this is my favourite of the series.
6 Nimmt!: went down very well as usual.
Wings of War: this happened after I went to bed I think - but all fell to Nick's conquering Red Baron.
Are You A Werewolf?: this was really good last-thing-at-night fun, excellently GM'd by Phil. It was shocking how easy it is to hang the wrong guy.
The cottage at Hay (Celtic Lodge) is up for sale, so unless we can come up with £300,000 between us, it looks like we will be somewhere else next year. We're looking for somewhere cheap, with lots of cafes and book shops and mountains to climb and rivers to swim in and tables to play games on. Any ideas?
Tag: boardgames
Command and Colors Ancients: This was a big hit, convincing even John (who knows a lot about the period and who has played a lot of 7th Edition and DBM in his time) in the end. I played three games, coaching three different new players, losing every one, but enjoying each one immensely.
Settlers of the Stone Age: reminded me that even a really good German game can be ruined if someone is determined to play as if it is Diplomacy.
San Juan: This is really good, we enjoyed the first one so much (sitting out on the balcony in the sunshine) that we went round and played it again immediately.
Attika: played this twice on Monday morning, in the final burst of gaming that came when we realized it was nearly time to go. Last time I played it (at Baycon) it was a confusing maze, this time it all clicked into place and I won easily - twice in a row!
Dvonn: a lot of this was played by various people in odd moments on the grass or in the pub. I played once against Gavin and won - but only just! I think this is my favourite of the series.
6 Nimmt!: went down very well as usual.
Wings of War: this happened after I went to bed I think - but all fell to Nick's conquering Red Baron.
Are You A Werewolf?: this was really good last-thing-at-night fun, excellently GM'd by Phil. It was shocking how easy it is to hang the wrong guy.
The cottage at Hay (Celtic Lodge) is up for sale, so unless we can come up with £300,000 between us, it looks like we will be somewhere else next year. We're looking for somewhere cheap, with lots of cafes and book shops and mountains to climb and rivers to swim in and tables to play games on. Any ideas?
Tag: boardgames
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
More gaming outreach
I spent last weekend relaxing with about 15 (non-gamer) friends in a large pleasant house on the North Downs. Naturally I packed a box with 4 or 5 Euro games just in case, and sure enough on Saturday evening the subject of boardgames came up. I carefully described the various options I had brought along - Settlers of the Stone Age, Through the Desert, Lord of the Rings etc, until someone (Rosie) said "I've got Pictionary with me, anyone fancy that?" That brought immediate approval from around table (the boringly familiar wins over the scarily unfamiliar every time?) so I sighed (internally) and settled down for an evening of shouting and scribbling. Still, when Pictionary finished at last (after a rules dispute about whether you need an exact die roll to finish!) I had the opportunity to introduce them to 6 Nimmt! which I'm happy to say went down a storm. As I result I have orders for 3 copies of the game (to be purchased from one of these obscure game shops which non-gamers find so difficult to even envisage the existence of, let alone contact or visit) including one for Rosie. So taken as a whole, I think our games evening counts as a success.
Tag: boardgames
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
Only two weeks now until NimrodCon, the annual gathering of friends at Hay-on-Wye in the beautiful border country out West. Regular visitor (and close relative) Phil has suggested a strict one-game-per-person rule, to avoid the loss of sunlight we usually suffer because of piles of unplayable wargames that get stacked up on all the window-ledges downstairs in the cottage where we stay.I think the legalistic one-game limit is unrealistic, but in the spirit of his suggestion I think I will attempt to prioritize my game carriage requirements this year.
Games I really really really want to play at Hay this year or I will burst:
Two-player
Command and Colors Ancients
Multi-player
Settlers of the Stone Age
Games I really really want to play at Hay this year or I will get a headache:
Two-player
Twilight Struggle
Multi-player
Struggle of Empires
Games I really want to play at Hay this year or I will feel mildly hard-done-by:
Two-player
BattleLine
War of the Ring
Multi-player
Amun Re
Shadow of the Emperor
1825
Age of Steam
There, only 10 games - I think Phil will be pretty impressed with that.....
Tag: boardgames
Monday, May 22, 2006
Still finding sand in my mouth
So I'm back in rainy England, after a week paragliding in the sunshine at Dune de Pyla on the Bordeaux coast. Disappointingly the weather, though superb from a relaxing on the beach angle, was not great for flying, and I was only in the air for about 15 minutes in total all week. However, I learned a lot, mainly from getting dragged up the dune in strong winds (filtering sand through my teeth like some bottom-feeding fish), and slowly learning (with some great coaching from the Flight Culture instructors) the best ways of controlling this giant kite that I foolishly strap myself into every time I go paragliding.Next trip is to the Austrian Alps in late June - that should be a different flying experience again. Chairlifts will be a nice change from slogging up a 400 ft sand-dune with a 20kg load on my back.....
Tag: paragliding
Thursday, May 04, 2006
Offline living
I'm falling behind with my online life - huge numbers of unread posts in Bloglines, nothing posted on nimrods for a while, even less on Best of Boardgames, a stack of emails not replied to, I'm completely unaware of the latest flamewars on BoardGameGeek. I'm just losing touch.
Thing is, life offline is becoming so interesting these days - the sun is shining, summer is on the way, I've been out on the hill flying, or out in the country on long walks with Sue. I've been actually playing games (instead of just reading about them on BGG). My job is very busy and strangely enjoyable at the moment. I'm teaching Phil to drive, and preparing for a flying holiday in France next week. The way it's going, I just don't know when I will ever catch up with my online life again. Perhaps when winter arrives or the sun stops shining......
Thing is, life offline is becoming so interesting these days - the sun is shining, summer is on the way, I've been out on the hill flying, or out in the country on long walks with Sue. I've been actually playing games (instead of just reading about them on BGG). My job is very busy and strangely enjoyable at the moment. I'm teaching Phil to drive, and preparing for a flying holiday in France next week. The way it's going, I just don't know when I will ever catch up with my online life again. Perhaps when winter arrives or the sun stops shining......
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
Pub Games
I met up with Les again last night for our regular pub game session. Not darts or dominoes, but Battle Line and Blue Moon. I love both these games hugely, although at the moment Battle Line really makes my head spin with the intensity of the decision making. Won the Battle Line, but lost the Blue Moon. The Blue Moon loss was especially humbling, as after losing with the Mimix to Les's Pillar,we swapped decks, and I managed to lose again just as convincingly with the Pillar. Ah well, it's not the decks then......
Les is an amiable and challenging opponent, the real ale was good - what more could I ask for?
Tag: boardgames
Les is an amiable and challenging opponent, the real ale was good - what more could I ask for?
Tag: boardgames
Near Miss
I popped into the Aldershot game shop on Saturday for a self-indulgent browse. I do enjoy living so close to this place - when I lived in Salisbury I used to make a very infrequent pilgrimage to Aldershot, 50 miles each way just to see the long shelves loaded with game boxes.
Anyway, as soon as I walked in last Saturday, there was the War of the Ring Expansion, glowing with glorious artwork, pristine in its shrinkwrap. This game is on my BGG wishlist, it should have been an immediate purchase, but .....I just couldn't do it. Another 78 plastic figures to paint? Right now, I just don't have the heart for it.....
Tag: boardgames
Anyway, as soon as I walked in last Saturday, there was the War of the Ring Expansion, glowing with glorious artwork, pristine in its shrinkwrap. This game is on my BGG wishlist, it should have been an immediate purchase, but .....I just couldn't do it. Another 78 plastic figures to paint? Right now, I just don't have the heart for it.....
Tag: boardgames
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
The Methuselah of Gameblogging?
It's a big day for nimrods - our 5th birthday! Hard to believe I've been doing this since April 2001. I reckon that makes this the world's oldest gameblog (note, I didn't say the world's oldest gameblogger - at least I hope not). Mikko started about a year after me, and I can't think of any others of similar vintage. But my memory is not what it was (too much blogging), so please correct me if you know otherwise......Any regular readers out there? What was your favourite nimrods posting? Drop me a comment and let us know.
Tuesday, April 18, 2006
Easter Monday at Green Dragons
The weather was doing stuff - Andy explained it all. There was wind and it had a direction and speed, and there were clouds doing things, and sunshine and stuff.....anyway.
Highlights of the day:
1) Andy's scary haircut. Looks like he's going back to his roots in the paras.
2) The Green Dragons mud-surfing competition. See who can get dragged furthest and fastest. Bonus points for weight of mud attached to clothes at end of day. Lots of entrants, no clear winner.
3) Steve's party trick - the "look no legstraps" take-off.
4) Ash smashes my previous tree-extraction time, recovering his wing from the bushes in a mere 2 hours.
Tag: paragliding
Highlights of the day:
1) Andy's scary haircut. Looks like he's going back to his roots in the paras.
2) The Green Dragons mud-surfing competition. See who can get dragged furthest and fastest. Bonus points for weight of mud attached to clothes at end of day. Lots of entrants, no clear winner.
3) Steve's party trick - the "look no legstraps" take-off.
4) Ash smashes my previous tree-extraction time, recovering his wing from the bushes in a mere 2 hours.
Tag: paragliding
Sunday, April 09, 2006
This is Holy Week
Looking at Stars
The God of curved space, the dry
God, is not going to help us, but the son
whose blood splattered
the hem of his mother's robe.
-- Jane Kenyon
The God of curved space, the dry
God, is not going to help us, but the son
whose blood splattered
the hem of his mother's robe.
-- Jane Kenyon
Friday, April 07, 2006
I think it is high time that there was a legal obligation on companies to consider the environment and their communities, not just shareholder returns, when they are making decisions. So I am signing up as a supporter of CoRe. I've spent most of my working life in big corporations. But if this campaign was to succeed I would sleep at night with a clearer conscience.
Monday, April 03, 2006
Timewasting
Dave came over for a weekend of boardgaming. Unfortunately we squandered the Saturday - wasted precious hours wandering in the countryside and the sunshine, followed by a good meal and an evening of camaraderie in the pub. Such a a waste of irreplaceable gaming time!However by Sunday lunchtime we had at last got organised with our first (and I suspect not our last for many a long year) game of C&C Ancients. As hoary grognards we despised the very concept of a beginners scenario and went straight into Lake Trasimene. What great fun! And what a nicely judged feel of ancient linear tactics from such a modest rulebook! Dave's Romans had a real chance of victory on a final dice roll, but just failed to save the day.
In many ways I have the feeling that C&C Ancients is the game I have been looking for ever since I first painted a DBA army 15 years ago, and decided that my eyesight and patience really wasn't up to much more of this. Great Battles of History was appealing, but after hours grappling with the ruleset and stacking piles of fiddly markers, SPQR got passed on to another home. But this ..... could it be The One?
After lunch Simon turned up - a pleasant surprise which allowed us to play Euphrat & Tigris, reliving the glory days of 2003. Dave played very aggressively, and I put in a truly mediocre performance for a final scoreboard of 13,11,8. Still, even a bad game of Euphrat & Tigris beats a good game of pretty much anything else. Excepting perhaps C&C Ancients.....Tag: boardgames
Sunday, March 19, 2006
Simply gorgeous
As requested, here are some photos of my painted War of the Ring figures. This project has lasted a few months, but to say that I am pleased with the end results would be an understatement.
I went for a very simple approach, aiming to treat the figures as functional playing pieces more than full-blown wargaming miniatures. In summary the technique goes like this:
- Carefully remove flash with Stanley knife.
Wash in warm detergent, rinse and dry.
Bent figures get dunked in near boiling water, reshaped, then dunked in water/ice cubes.
Spray with Games Workshop "Chaos Black", 24 hrs drying, then a second coat.
Paint with Miniature Paints (acrylic) base colour. 24 hrs drying, then second coat. Another 24 hrs to dry.
Dry brush, usually but not always with base colour mixed with white.
Paint the base, grey or blue for Free Peoples, black for shadow.
24 hrs drying, then spray with Games Workshop "Purity Seal" varnish.
24 hrs drying, then bundle back into the box tray - don't bag them.
I'm pretty pleased with the results, but my technique did get better as I went on, so that the Elves for example look significantly better than the Rohirrim. Two mistakes I made with early figures:- Too much paint on brush for base colour, obliterating the black underpainting entirely.
Spraying too close/too long with the varnish, giving a glossy finish.
Here are the Companions and Minions. I gave these a more detailed paint job, still using dry-brushing of lighter colour on top. I think they will look great on the board next time I play!Tag: boardgames
Thursday, March 16, 2006
Wednesday, March 15, 2006
Quick splurge
I got the opportunity to visit the Aldershot Game Shop after work yesterday, with money from recent eBay sales burning a hole in my pocket. I had my carefully worked out WishList on the Geek, and that said I "must have" Through the Desert, so I duly put that on the counter. But for my second purchase I found myself passing up my other "Must Have" Age of Steam and even "Love to Haves" like Power Grid, in favour of Settlers of the Stone Age, which just appealed to me on the day. I like the idea of the epic scope combined with Settlers-type simplicity. I think my choice made sense too in terms of balancing my collection, which is weighted in favour of wargames (Europe Engulfed, ASL Starter Kits)and gamer's games (Age of Empires, 1825) and doesn't have enough simple, short, newbie-friendly Euro games. I think yesterday's splurge choices started to redress that.Tag: boardgames
Just a quiet Sunday in the arena with the battling monsters....
I introduced Colossal Arena to Gavin, Phil and Katie on Sunday. First time I've played it, though I've been carrying it hopefully to game sessions for a while now. Tricky game to explain - once you've got across the idea of the rounds and the betting and eliminations, you also by rights should go on to explain backers and special powers, but by now your audience is looking pie-eyed and just want to get on with it. However, a couple of card plays dispels the confusion, and it plays smoothly and swiftly with lots of fun along the way. Lived up to my expectations.Tag: boardgames
Friday, March 10, 2006
Blue Moon on the web
The Fantasy Flight website is pretty sketchy, hardly worth a visit.But the Kosmos website is excellent, with lots of stuff (in English too): images of every card in the game, complete ruleset, material about the designer and the artists, and a forum (German language sadly).
There is a busy fansite, mostly in German, though it does include an English-language forum. It's worth checking out this thread for fan-designed cardsets.
At Blue Moon Liga you can play online using software called CardTable.
Chris Dearlove looks after an extensive FAQ.
On BoardGameGeek Brad Durandetta is promising us a deck-by-deck strategy guide. The first one, on the Hoax, is invaluable.
The Blue Moon deck database, a deck-building aid, is clunky - don't bother.
Some of the best reviews:
A long time ago Richard Huzzey reviewed the basic set very thoroughly on Games Journal.
Last month Joe Gola's magisterial review did what all the best reviews do - made me want to go and play it again immediately!
And a week later Shannon Appelcline did an insightful article analyzing Blue Moon in turn as an Auction game, a Resource Managament game, and a Card game.
And then there's Dave...
My old gaming buddy Dave took the trouble to drive over all the way from Salisbury on Tuesday night. He's one of the few remaining members of the Salisbury gaming group that flourished for about a decade from 1992. He's a lovely guy, one of life's evergreen enthusiasts, always excited about the next game. I cooked him a meal and introduced him to Memoir 44 (not at the same time, obviously, that would be messy). We played Operation Cobra and I got overwhelmed by his waves of Yankee tanks and infantry. Great fun...
Tag: boardgames
Tag: boardgames
Call me shallow, but...
I never looked into Power Grid because I was put off by the graphics. The rusty bolts and sewage pipe imagery was an instant turnoff for me. How wrong I was! We played the game last night at Trevor's and I loved it. I like the straightforward mechanics with subtle implications, like the commodity market, which models supply and demand surprisingly well. Half way through the game I pulled off a satisfying coup, stockpiling coal and driving up the price. Les and Trevor panicked and switched to oil-fired power-stations, leaving me with plentiful cheap coal for the rest of the game! I like business games, especially business games with network building - I have spent many happy hours playing 1830 - and Power Grid presses the same buttons for me. Tag: boardgames
Thursday, March 09, 2006
Napoleon at Waterloo
Wow, I cut my teeth on this game - we used to play it at school in dinner breaks. Now I can download it. (Thanks Iain!)
Tag: boardgames
Tag: boardgames
Torn
I finally picked up my copy of Commands and Colors: Ancients from the Post Office yesterday. It looks absolutely marvellous! I've already ordered some blank dice from The Education Shop to make it just perfect. Trouble is - I have a gaming session tonight, and I'm feeling torn - I would almost rather stay at home fiddling with my lovely new game, sticking stickers on blocks, reading the rules etc. It's a sorry state of things isn't it, when a game threatens to keeps me from gaming....Tag: boardgames
Tuesday, March 07, 2006
Back in the air
Last week I finally got my glider back from Gin, with its brand-new lineset all ready to fly again after December's tangle with a tree. And almost straight away, the opportunity to take to the air came around. Saturday, after a positive weather check at 7am, I drove over to Green Dragons with Martin for lunchtime. Unfortunately when we arrived I was so excited about flying again I didn't fully think through the implications of driving my Polo across the farm, and duly got stuck in the mud! We completed the journey on foot with our heavy gear, only to be turned back almost immediately for lunch break, stopping only to get some help dragging my car out of the mire.
After lunch the winch was set up in the big field at Woldingham, and over the course of the afternoon I got 3 flights to about 400 feet. It felt so good to be up there again looking down on the incredible vista of London spread out to the North glowing in the afternoon sun. I love this sport....
Tag: paragliding
After lunch the winch was set up in the big field at Woldingham, and over the course of the afternoon I got 3 flights to about 400 feet. It felt so good to be up there again looking down on the incredible vista of London spread out to the North glowing in the afternoon sun. I love this sport....
Tag: paragliding
And the beer was good too...
I met up with Les at the pub last night for our regular Blue Moon confrontation. I just love this game! Les played the Mimix as usual - I sometimes wonder if less for their fighting skills, more to look at the pictures - and I took the Pillar. Never played them before. Lots of boosters, very few support cards. So it's strike early with big numbers rather than gradually building up a power base in your support area. We were using emissaries as well. It was a to-and-fro struggle ending in a draw - a first for us I think.
Next we revisited Fjords - which I like,maybe because I keep winning. Then Roma, which I usually lose. Maybe because of this, I wonder about this game - so much seems to depend on the Forum. But it's fun, tactical play, with involving card combinations, and only takes 20 minutes, so it's hard to dislike it.
Tag: boardgames
Next we revisited Fjords - which I like,maybe because I keep winning. Then Roma, which I usually lose. Maybe because of this, I wonder about this game - so much seems to depend on the Forum. But it's fun, tactical play, with involving card combinations, and only takes 20 minutes, so it's hard to dislike it.
Tag: boardgames
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
War of the Ring - in colour!
On Sunday Les and I got together for War of the Ring. If you look closely you can see that I have finished painting the figures (except the Companions and Minions). They looked spectacular on the map, well worth the effort, and being able to instantly distinguish the different races made it significantly easier to play as well. However, my sense of pride in my paint job didn't save me from defeat - after a tough struggle with many setbacks the hobbits succumbed to corruption on step 4 of the Mordor track.
Tag: boardgames
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
Flying update
Flying, what flying? We're right in the heart of the winter lay-off, with windy and wet conditions keeping everyone grounded at the moment. But even when a rare patch of flyable weekend weather comes along, my paraglider is still at Gin UK being mended after last December's encounter with the trees. Having been dragged out of the trees by a 4x4, it came as no surprise to learn that the lines were stretched and weakened to 50% of their new breaking strain. A new line-set is being shipped out from Korea as we speak, but it may be weeks yet before my wing is back home and ready to fly again.
Meanwhile I'm taking the opportunity to get my reserve repacked. Sounds boring, but definitely not a corner I want to cut.
And I've also been consoling myself with DVDs about the sport - "Speed to Fly" and "Never Ending Thermal" keeping my enthusiasm alive.
I've also been booking some paragliding trips for this year: Dune de Pyla in France in May with Flight Culture. This is an area of big sand-dunes on the bordeaux coast, famous for easy ridge-soaring and soft landings. Then Zillertal in Austria in June with Austrian Arena to do a Thermalling Clinic. I was there skiing last winter, it will be amazing to visit again - this time to float (effortlessly?) above the same landscape.
And I'm studying towards the next qualification - Green Dragons have been running lectures over the last few weeks preparing us for the Pilot exam next week. I'm revising in spare moments over breakfast and lunch, cramming my head with Air Law, Flight Theory and Meteorology. Hopefully I will pass, then all I have to do is get 25 hours flying time, pull a few 50% collapses, and I will be a Pilot. Cross-country flying awaits!
Tag: paragliding
Meanwhile I'm taking the opportunity to get my reserve repacked. Sounds boring, but definitely not a corner I want to cut.
And I've also been consoling myself with DVDs about the sport - "Speed to Fly" and "Never Ending Thermal" keeping my enthusiasm alive.
I've also been booking some paragliding trips for this year: Dune de Pyla in France in May with Flight Culture. This is an area of big sand-dunes on the bordeaux coast, famous for easy ridge-soaring and soft landings. Then Zillertal in Austria in June with Austrian Arena to do a Thermalling Clinic. I was there skiing last winter, it will be amazing to visit again - this time to float (effortlessly?) above the same landscape.
And I'm studying towards the next qualification - Green Dragons have been running lectures over the last few weeks preparing us for the Pilot exam next week. I'm revising in spare moments over breakfast and lunch, cramming my head with Air Law, Flight Theory and Meteorology. Hopefully I will pass, then all I have to do is get 25 hours flying time, pull a few 50% collapses, and I will be a Pilot. Cross-country flying awaits!
Tag: paragliding
Friday, February 17, 2006
Losing and loving it
Another gaming session at Keith's last night. First up was Ra. Fresh from my victory on Saturday I was feeling confident, and splashed out early on some unwise purchases that left me with only 1, 2 and 8 to spend in the second epoch. I fear I became a bit of a nuisance calling RA every round trying to get a bargain with my 1. In the end Trevor romped home with 60 points leaving the rest of us clustered in the 30-somethings. On reflection I blame Keith's multi-coloured player "aids" printed out from BGG for my poor showing - all that visual noise distracted my normally razor-sharp position-evaluation skills.
Next I set up Oltremare, which my Mum gave me at Christmas - the original version with the tiny map and slightly fiddly counters. The game seemed a bit daunting during my explanation of the rules, but after a couple of rounds the turns were flowing very smoothly. It's a fun, interesting game that we completed in just over an hour. Les scraped a victory and I came in a poor third. I like the way you have to balance the different elements - the puzzle of which cards to play in which order, planning ahead for next turn, minimizing pirate hits, negotiating good trades and travelling the map looking for the optimal special power. Clever, slick and enjoyable.
Tag: boardgames
Next I set up Oltremare, which my Mum gave me at Christmas - the original version with the tiny map and slightly fiddly counters. The game seemed a bit daunting during my explanation of the rules, but after a couple of rounds the turns were flowing very smoothly. It's a fun, interesting game that we completed in just over an hour. Les scraped a victory and I came in a poor third. I like the way you have to balance the different elements - the puzzle of which cards to play in which order, planning ahead for next turn, minimizing pirate hits, negotiating good trades and travelling the map looking for the optimal special power. Clever, slick and enjoyable.
Tag: boardgames
Thursday, February 16, 2006
This is what I get for complaining. Next thing I know I’m co-opted onto the team over at Best of Boardgames.
Similar thing happened to me in church a few years ago. I emailed the pastor criticized his behaviour in a meeting. Next thing I know I’m on the leadership team.
That all ended in tears. Hopefully this won’t….
PS I have to say - writing on BlogSome is a much pleasanter experience than using dear old Blogger.
Tag: boardgames
Similar thing happened to me in church a few years ago. I emailed the pastor criticized his behaviour in a meeting. Next thing I know I’m on the leadership team.
That all ended in tears. Hopefully this won’t….
PS I have to say - writing on BlogSome is a much pleasanter experience than using dear old Blogger.
Tag: boardgames
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
Do we need an aggregator blog?
Forgive me for mentioning this, but Best of Boardgames is looking a bit weak these days. Just 3 postings in the last week, and none of those linking to blogs as such. Have there really been no interesting game blog entries in the last week? What about Joe Gola's inspirational Blue Moon review for a start? Or Iain's exhausting 1944 experiences in the Ardennes ? Or DW Tripp's hilarious if sexist exposé of gamers who daren't take their games home?
I don't know if there is even any need for an aggregator blog - I've got my own window on this world and it's called Bloglines. But if we are to have one, it needs to be regular, informative, and opinionated!
Tag: boardgames
I don't know if there is even any need for an aggregator blog - I've got my own window on this world and it's called Bloglines. But if we are to have one, it needs to be regular, informative, and opinionated!
Tag: boardgames
Tuesday, February 14, 2006
More ludangelism (is that even a word?)
My "project" non-gamers Linda and Balazs visited on Saturday. After a long walk around the Devil's Punchbowl they sat down with me and Sue to a game of Ra, one of my absolute favourites. The result was a surprise - Linda and Balazs both struggled to score any points at all in the first two epochs, whereas Sue played really well, and seemed very much at home with the kind of thinking the game requires. In the end, I just stole the win from her by a single point.
Here's a photo of Balazs and Sue after the game with big smiles - they seem to have enjoyed themselves.
Sue has seemed uneasy with games that involve manoevering around a map in some way - like Settlers or Yinsh or Carcassone. She seemed a lot happier with Ra which demands a different kind of reasoning - assessing the value of items, anticipating other people's reactions to bidding opportunities, judging when to call an auction or not. Verbal rather than visual reasoning? The question is what other games might you suggest that would appeal to Sue's strengths and possibly suck her further into the evil vortex of our hobby? Lost Cities springs to mind, 6 Nimmt! perhaps, Die Macher even (though she is averse to long games too!)
Tag: boardgames
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
Feel your hate Luke. Give in to it.
None of my local gaming buddies play wargames - they are all confessed Euro purists. As part of my evil plan to corrupt them all and turn them from peaceful clear-eyed Euro players into slavering blood-crazed wargamers, I invited Keith round last night to teach him Memoir 44. We played scenario 9 "Operation Lettuce", and Keith took the Germans, with several units of elite SS Panzers and PzGrenadiers to play with. In spite of being a complete beginner at not only Memoir 44, but also the noble arts of war in general, he picked up the idea very quickly, and within half an hour his fanatical warriors were stomping all over my defenders on Hill 317. It was a tough, hard-fought struggle. At one point I briefly retook the hill, only to be thrown off again by Keith's tanks almost immediately. The outcome was inevitable.But Keith, you may have won the battle, but now you belong to the dark side................
Tag: boardgames
Monday, February 06, 2006
The Virgin Queen
I hardly ever watch TV (films, now that's a different matter) but I freely admit to being hooked by The Virgin Queen on BBC 1 on Sundays. Anne-Marie Duff does Elizabeth to a tee - plain but powerfully attractive, bursting with human energy. And unlike the Cate Blanchett movie (1998, Shekhar Kapur), the history looks pretty solid to me.
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
Recent gaming action
Jenseits von Theben: We played this at Keith's session last Thursday. I enjoyed it a lot. I like the way the passage of time is handled - a bit like Around the World in 80 Days only more intuitive. I wonder if a similar mechanism could be used in wargames? Some actions take longer than others - so if you pick a long one your opponent gets the chance to do several shorter ones before your next turn comes around. Might work well in an Age of Sail game.....anyway, enough musing on red herrings. I like the archaeology theme of JvT , and the difficult decisions about balancing research in Europe with the chancier commitments to a big dig in the Near East. Sure there's a lot of luck in how many decent artifacts you find, but that's the skill - making the right decisions to optimize your chances. The production is a bit sparse, but this is such an excellent game I would be surprised if it's not given a face-lift soon by one of the big publishers. But what are Jenseits, that's what I want to know?
Shear Panic: Yes, Keith has a copy. Stuff some money into my Paypal account and I might give you his address, if you fancy a bit of breaking and entering. Basically this is a little abstract game with a bit of luck thrown in, played in three or four rounds with each with different objectives. But of course it is lifted by the superb playing pieces - those large, heavy, hand-painted comedy sheep, looking just like characters from Wallace and Gromit. Brilliant.
Zertz: The nice thing about this is you can stuff the whole game including the board in a large dice-bag and take it to the coffee-shop or pub. Which I have done with Phil a couple of times now. Highly portable, and looks great when it's set up. Phil usually beats me too. It's a strange game, very indirect. You can't just fight it out for what you want - you have to maneuver the other guy into a position where he is forced to give you what you want. Takes a while to get used to this.
Poker: Phil took Gavin and my shirts at Texas Holdem on Friday evening. On Sunday I persuaded Gavin to try Draw Poker (out of Sid Sackson's book). We both got pretty fed up with the rule that says you must have at least a pair of Jacks to bet. I can see it might work with a big table, but with two it was plain boring.
6 Nimmt!: I had a few rounds of this with Gavin once we got tired of Poker. It works well with two, I would like to try it with more some time. Fantastic, classic game.
Memoir 44: I've been soloing the Montelimar scenario, and I splashed out for the Eastern Front expansion and extra boards, which look gorgeous by the way. I've persuaded Keith to have a go soon, and I plan to try M44 online on VASSAL some time this week.
High Stakes Drifter: Another collectible card game, on a western/poker/gunfighting theme. Comes with a couple of poker chips! The guy in the Aldershot Games Shop popped it in my bag as a freebie with my M44 stuff - this is worrying, it suggests he is starting to think of me as a regular spender. If he starts offering me a discount I will know I've got a real problem!
The Napoleonic Wars and Throneworld: These have both been sold on eBay and packed off to their new owners in the post with never a pang. Strangely I was expecting Throneworld to make a better price, but in the event it went for just £11 but I got over £30 for The Napoleonic Wars. I lost my digital camera in November, in Cambridge on my birthday. Didn't even notice it had gone until Christmas Day. I'm just about to get a new one on insurance, and I'm waiting on that before the I can put the next batch of games up on eBay.
The War of the Ring: Painting of the pieces continues apace. Completed the dwarves yesterday. Only the elves and our friends from the North left to do now - plus the companions and minions of course, who will get a slightly more detailed paint job. (I bought one of those sinister looking frames with claws and a magnifying glass in preparation.) I'm really pleased with the results so far. I will post some pictures when everything is complete - if I don't lose my new camera in the meantime......
Tag: boardgames
Shear Panic: Yes, Keith has a copy. Stuff some money into my Paypal account and I might give you his address, if you fancy a bit of breaking and entering. Basically this is a little abstract game with a bit of luck thrown in, played in three or four rounds with each with different objectives. But of course it is lifted by the superb playing pieces - those large, heavy, hand-painted comedy sheep, looking just like characters from Wallace and Gromit. Brilliant.
Zertz: The nice thing about this is you can stuff the whole game including the board in a large dice-bag and take it to the coffee-shop or pub. Which I have done with Phil a couple of times now. Highly portable, and looks great when it's set up. Phil usually beats me too. It's a strange game, very indirect. You can't just fight it out for what you want - you have to maneuver the other guy into a position where he is forced to give you what you want. Takes a while to get used to this.
Poker: Phil took Gavin and my shirts at Texas Holdem on Friday evening. On Sunday I persuaded Gavin to try Draw Poker (out of Sid Sackson's book). We both got pretty fed up with the rule that says you must have at least a pair of Jacks to bet. I can see it might work with a big table, but with two it was plain boring.
6 Nimmt!: I had a few rounds of this with Gavin once we got tired of Poker. It works well with two, I would like to try it with more some time. Fantastic, classic game.
Memoir 44: I've been soloing the Montelimar scenario, and I splashed out for the Eastern Front expansion and extra boards, which look gorgeous by the way. I've persuaded Keith to have a go soon, and I plan to try M44 online on VASSAL some time this week.
High Stakes Drifter: Another collectible card game, on a western/poker/gunfighting theme. Comes with a couple of poker chips! The guy in the Aldershot Games Shop popped it in my bag as a freebie with my M44 stuff - this is worrying, it suggests he is starting to think of me as a regular spender. If he starts offering me a discount I will know I've got a real problem!
The Napoleonic Wars and Throneworld: These have both been sold on eBay and packed off to their new owners in the post with never a pang. Strangely I was expecting Throneworld to make a better price, but in the event it went for just £11 but I got over £30 for The Napoleonic Wars. I lost my digital camera in November, in Cambridge on my birthday. Didn't even notice it had gone until Christmas Day. I'm just about to get a new one on insurance, and I'm waiting on that before the I can put the next batch of games up on eBay.
The War of the Ring: Painting of the pieces continues apace. Completed the dwarves yesterday. Only the elves and our friends from the North left to do now - plus the companions and minions of course, who will get a slightly more detailed paint job. (I bought one of those sinister looking frames with claws and a magnifying glass in preparation.) I'm really pleased with the results so far. I will post some pictures when everything is complete - if I don't lose my new camera in the meantime......
Tag: boardgames
Wednesday, January 11, 2006
Columbus
As a belated Christmas gift to you all, I've posted rules to a Diplomacy variant that I designed back in 1992, called Columbus. Here are the links:
I have also put them in the sidebar.
This was played quite a few times in various postal Dip zines in the 90s, so it has been thoroughly playtested - it works and it's fun! I believe it was popular in Sweden until quite recently......well "popular" as in half a dozen guys played it.
Tag: boardgames
I have also put them in the sidebar.
This was played quite a few times in various postal Dip zines in the 90s, so it has been thoroughly playtested - it works and it's fun! I believe it was popular in Sweden until quite recently......well "popular" as in half a dozen guys played it.
Tag: boardgames
Monday, January 09, 2006
An evening with Type B slowcoaches
On New Year's Eve I met up with Sue, Linda and Balazs to celebrate with a meal and some boardgames. You may remember that these are new-to-gaming folks, but once again the inclusion of boardgaming activity in the evening was their idea not mine. This time I tried them with Carcassone, another noted "gateway game", which says 30 minutes playing time on the box. In the event we took a solid 2 hours, even though I gently prompted them from time-to-time about "not over-optimizing too much" and that sort of thing. Carcassone is OK as a game, not one of my favourites, but after 2 hours it had definitely outstayed its welcome. This led me to meditate upon the subject of slow gamers, and I came to the conclusion that there are two kinds.Type A: These are experienced gamers whose desire to win completely overwhelms any considerations of courtesy to the other players. I heard recently of a player in an 1830 session who took 40 minutes to make his decision about one turn of a stock round. 40 minutes! And then he passed. In my view this is unacceptable. If your desire to win means that you are willing to make the evening a long dragged-out torture for the other players, then I do not wish to be in your gaming group.
Type B: Unlike the Type A slowcoach, these players are new to boardgamimg and have not yet mastered the skills involved in making your moves promptly. And believe me there are quite a few skills involved, which may take a while to master. Firstly there is the habit of planning your next move during downtime. Even in Carcassone where you do not know what your next tile will be, you can think about which tiles you would ideally like to see, so that if one of those turns up you just shout "Huzzah!" and whack it down. But you can also think about what to do if you are less lucky and you get a tile you don't really want - maybe there would be a way to use it that screws up another player? Plenty to think about there while you wait for your turn to come around. I know one gamer whom I won't name, who has been gaming for decades but still has the habit of zoning out while it is not his turn, then regularly has to be reminded when it comes back to him. Then he has his thinking all still to do. Gets frustrating sometimes.
Then there is the skill of knowing how far ahead to analyze and when to quit the analysis and go with your best guess. Some games in particular feel like they can be analyzed until you know you've chosen your optimal move, but in a time-frame that is inconsiderate to your fellow players. This is often associated with the end-game, as in the last round or two of Vinci, and can tack an infuriatingly dragged-out ending onto an otherwise perfectly enjoyable game experience.
And don't forget preparation for a game. Not always possible, but if you can spend some time beforehand internalizing the rules and thinking about your first turn, that will speed things up for everyone. It can be horrible being the only person at the table who knows the rules - never getting chance to think straight about your next turn because you are constantly being asked about rules or strategy advice, or simply monitoring the moves of the novice players for rules errors.
So - Linda Balazs and Sue were definitely Type B slowcoaches, and thus not culpable in the same way as Type A's. And hopefully it won't be too long before they pick up some of these skills I've been talking about. Then they will be well on the way to becoming perfect gamers like me......
Tag: boardgames
Friday, January 06, 2006
Celebrate the New Year by crushing your friends
On Sunday I drove down to Cardiff, crossing the bridge in filthy weather to visit Nick for a couple of days of gaming to greet the new year. Dave was already there, and they were both getting over their hangovers when I arrived by sitting in the Robin Hood with a pint. We finally got back to Nick's flat and started a 3-player game of Sword of Rome, which continued well into Monday morning - with breaks for Nick's excellent chillie, a film (The Knight's Tale) and a few rounds of 6 Nimmt! (which I won). I played the Greeks to Dave's Romans and Nick's Etruscan/Samnites. Poor Dave took some big VP losses early on and Nick looked like a winner all through the mid-game. Dave periodically hammered me with the Carthaginians, but never consistently enough to really hurt me, and in the end I grabbed the win by a margin of 2 VPs.We had a few debates about the quality of this game during play. I think we all agreed that the rules are very badly written and laid out. And the game has more fiddly bits than it really needs - a bit more polishing and simplification would have helped a lot. Unfortunately the errata and living rules have made the situation significantly worse (I blame ConsimWorld and the howling mob of grognards that greets every new game there) and in future I think I would prefer to play with the rules out of the box. Dave also felt grumpy that "his plans never worked" which I think is a less justified complaint - this is after all a card-driven game and as such you need to expect the unexpected.
Having said all this I still think Sword of Rome is an excellent 3-player wargame and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Next up was Euphrat & Tigris, which Nick was keen to play as he wants to improve his chances against his girlfriend Dani. Not sure if we helped, as it was a bruising, high-conflict game which I just won by 1 point.
Dave had to go now but Nick and I faced up for another Euphrat & Tigris session, Nick still keen to pick up some tactics. Unfortunately early in the game he lost a big conflict heavily, and never got a chance to recover. I swiftly scooped up all but two of the treasures for a decisive win. I was getting embarrassed by this point - if they hadn't invited me along Nick and Dave would probably have had a nice weekend sharing the victories out evenly, but I came along on a big winning streak and left them both feeling a bit crushed.
Oh well - the guilt is wearing off now, but the warm glow remains. Besides, my winning streaks are pretty rare so I will bask in this one while it lasts......
Tag: boardgames
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