Camden Lock Market went up in smoke last night. It's a shame, I liked the shabby hippyness of the place. Ans it's especially a shame as there was a little game shop - Village Games - which most likely burnt down with all the other little businesses there. They sold fancy Go sets and tarot cards and dice and stuff, but they also had quite a few Eurogames stacked on top of cupboards and on the floor. The whole shop was tiny, about the size of a pantry. I hope they were insured...

An open letter

My darling Sue,

You have probably noticed that there have been rather a lot of parcel deliveries to our home recently. There were two just before Christmas (Conquest of Paradise and Runebound), and another two just after (Clash of Giants II and Reef Encounter), and then a specially large one from the States last week (Commands and Colors:Ancients expansions 2 and 3). I would hate you to think that I have got some sort of compulsive game-buying disorder, so I just want to explain what's going on so that you can understand it's not like that at all.

The easy ones first: Runebound and Reef Encounter were BoardGameGeek trades - I swapped games I don't want (Hansa, Caesar & Cleopatra, and Tempus) for games I do want from some friendly geeks on BGG. It didn't cost me any money (except the postage, quite hefty in the case of Tempus) so I got all the fun of the new-game-in-the-post experience without the expense.

Next let me explain to you about the P500 items: Conquest of Paradise and the Commands and Colors:Ancients expansions. I preordered these from GMT ages ago - back in the summer when I had a well-paid job - so it's almost like getting a free gift in the post - from my old prosperous self. I don't think you can blame me for that - can you?

So that only leaves one: Clash of Giants II. This was in GMT's Christmas sale for their loyal P500 customers. 50% off any two games. I was very restrained - I only bought one, so in fact this was an example, not of extravagence, as might first be assumed, but of careful budgeting and prudence.

So there you are. I hope that's all cleared up in your mind now, and you understand why all those parcels were necessary.

Your loving husband,
Peter

Blue Moon heaven

This is a fantastic boon for me - Reiner Knizia's Blue Moon is one of my top ten games of all time, but I only know one other person (my good friend Les) who likes to play it. But now, there is a wonderful computer program that I can practice against. It's a free download!

And it beats me every time......

Bring it on

I didn't do very well in our Christmas challenge - 3rd out of 4, only managing to beat Phil, who had never played Euphrat & Tigris before. But never say die, I've opened another readers' game for you over at BoardGameGeek. It's called Nucleus Accumbens, password "nimrods".

Don't miss Phil's retelling of Frankenstein for modern audiences.

Thanks a lot Steve

Yesterday iTunes suddenly decided, for some reason, that it had no tunes in its library. Thankfully they were all still there (all 3800 of them) on disk, so all I had to do was point iTunes at the folder. Then there was the scary business of reloading them onto my iPod, which it no longer recognized of course. But the annoying thing is that all my playlists have disappeared, and all my ratings too. So I can no longer listen to my "Friday" playlist or my "5-star rated" playlist. Grr.....

Gaming token

My car got towed this morning. Initially I thought it had been stolen, but after a few calls I tracked it down to our friends at the Harringay council vehicle pound. Apparently I had been parked in front of a "dropped kerb" whatever that is. Aargh! £250 gone, what a waste! And how depressing.

But I am married to a wonderful woman. After I had recovered my car and was brooding in my study, Sue brought up a cup of tea, some chocolate, and this voucher, entitling me to a game of Conquest of Paradise (recently arrived in the post) with my wife. Excellent, my mood is lifting already.

Thing is though, a lot of wargamers would love to have a voucher like this. So I'm seriously thinking about eBaying it. It might even cover the fine......

Man flu

Some people (especially women) speak of "man flu" in a derogatory tone of voice. However, I can report that Sue and I have conclusively demonstrated the existence of this mysterious illness. We were both infected simultaneously last weekend with the same strain of virus, and started developing symptoms at the same time on Monday morning. However, my illness has clearly developed in a much more serious manner than Sue's, as measured objectively by the following signs:
- Groaning
- Blowing nose
- Grumbling
- Sneezing
- Self-medicating
- Coughing
- Lying in bed
- Wishing self dead
- Feeling too tired to do household chores
So there it is. You heard it here first - "man flu" is real.

The Christmas Challenge

Anyone for a readers-only game of Euphrat & Tigris over on BoardGameGeek? It's called Globus Pallidus and the password is "nimrods".

Excited!

I'm excited about wargaming at the moment. I'm excited because:

1) I'm meeting Marty tomorrow to play Hannibal: Rome vs Carthage. I used to play this a lot back in the 90's, it will be great to play this classic again. Marty has the new Valley Games edition with the controversial Mike Doyle artwork - it will be interesting to see how useable the new edition is.

2) I'm meeting Phil (my son) on Sunday to play lots of Up Front! And you just can't beat a good game of Up Front!

3) I've just ordered Clash of Giants II in GMT's winter sale. 50% off - that's exciting!

4) Somebody contacted me out of the blue on BGG and offered me a trade. So I swapped 2 games I didn't really want (Hansa and Caesar & Cleopatra) for one game that I pick up and look at every time I go in a game shop but put it down with a sigh because of the price label (Runebound). I'm very excited about Runebound - especially as I can play it solo. And I'm very attracted by the idea of the expansion decks. Term finishes tomorrow so I hope I'll get a couple of hours to try this one out shortly.

A Tale of Two Gaming Weekends

Part i – Cardiff 2nd-4th November

Here's a nice write up from Nick of a recent gaming weekend we had at his place in Cardiff:

After picking up Peter from the station (and a swift pint at our local nationalist pub!) we got home and started playing pretty pronto; first up Command & Colours. Replaying the Battle of Zama I was the Romans and Pete the Carthaginians and, true to historical form I won – quite easily. Swapping sides Pete got his revenge though I though it was quite close – and here’s something that I’ve found out about this elegant excellent game; that there’s a fine margin between winning and losing and that a seemingly stable (even winning) situation can rapidly veer out of control. In my case I made the mistake of leaving one block units within reach of his units – Pete took advantage of my folly and won.

After a spot of dinner there was the return of an old favourite – Railway Rivals. Dani joined in and duly leapt into the lead with Pete coming a close second and me having a right mare!! I was never in it – at one point I was 100 points behind the leader, though I was catching up towards the end. Rarely for this game the game was going to be decided on the last race too....and this put me in a quandary. Dani was ahead of Pete by 15, but she couldn’t run the last race – Pete and I could. If I didn’t run Pete would win the game, if I did and won Dani would win......choices........choices!!! Well no choice really – I had to race and fortuitously won though I could hear Pete muttering something like ‘under the thumb’ as my train entered destination town!

Next up was a game of Sechs Nimmt (Dani won again!!!!!) after which Pete then went to bed!!!!!!!!!!.......Ahhhh....I remember the good old days, sitting up ‘til 3 in the morning talking intellectual things over a good glass of brandy and a cigar..........errm well, playing some complicated game over cheap cider until our eyes couldn’t stay open any longer! Ah well......no more!

Still, I think I can forgive Pete (almost!) anything as for my birthday he gave me the first starter kit for Advanced Squad Leader. I spent the Friday night reading the rules to Pete’s rhythmic snoring (only joking.....he purrs!) and – despite being the worst written set of rules I’ve ever come across – I think I’ve become a true geek. The game is brilliant.

The Saturday was Up Front day – specifically a campaign version of the British vs Germans at Caen. This consisted of 10 linked scenarios with varying special rules (i.e. AFV reinforcements, night rules etc) and each side had varying points with which to build their squads in each scenario. The squads were built from a limited roster of soldiers and each individual could change (for better or worse) depending on what happened to him in a scenario. In effect it was the campaign game rules in the Up Front rulebook with minor modifications from a campaign system I found on the internet.

I wasn’t sure if it would work, but to judge from Pete’s reaction - and my own - it makes a brilliant game even better. Choosing your squad is difficult as it has to be tailored to the specific victory conditions of that scenario – if you have to close with enemy (i.e. reach range chit 4) then it’s important to stock up with chaps wielding automatic weapons (moving fire, good firepower close up), if you’re defending, rifles and LMGs/MMGs are the order of the day, if you’ve got to take a pillbox then a flamethrower and Demo charges are needed. But this is a choice that must be made by the player within the confines of the points allocated – and this choice becomes more difficult with each scenario as individuals become wounded (they come back 3 scenarios later), lose morale (from routing in the previous scenario) or die (forcing the owning player to pay VPs to bring them back – but only when all other soldiers with the same weapon have been used). After a few scenarios your squad has a different look and feel to it and (as I was playing the Germans) I was constantly reminded of that great film ‘Cross of Iron’.

Anyway – we only managed to play the first three scenarios and by that time the Germans were enjoying the best of it, though I suspect the Brits would have come right back into it. We both made mistakes – Pete sending on his AFV reinforcement (I got a Panther in the previous scenario.....how exciting!!) against a pillbox rather than a squad of vulnerable chappies – and me forgetting just how nasty a mortar is against infantry......even in a gully!! Nevertheless, we both enjoyed the game immensely and will certainly do the campaign again.

After a much needed rest (and curry!) we resumed (with Dani) a new Catan game ‘Struggle for Rome’. Advertised as an “educational” historical game it plays the Germanic tribes (each player represents 2 factions – a cavalry and infantry – of one tribe) crossing into the Roman empire raiding and then settling. Resource cards are gained much the same way as in usual Catan games and the first one to 10 VPs wins, with VPs gained for raiding, building cities (once a tribe starts this it can’t raid any more) and few other things. Despite getting some rules wrong (my fault) we finished and I won (getting the rules wrong didn’t affect the outcome........honest guv!!).

I’m not keen though – where the game says educational there should be an added bit saying “this game has absolutely no relation to what happened in the 4th and 5th centuries” – in effect it’s the usual unimaginative Eurogame-mechanism with a fake ‘period’ chrome. Furthermore it’s just a bit too easy and one-dimensional – there are only 2 strategies for each player and the game just gets too repetitive. Now if you could attack other tribes (as happened historically) that would open the game up completely – but it’s a Eurogame and while it’s OK to sack Roman cities it’s not OK to attack each other!!!!! Settlers of the Stone Age is altogether a better game – not because it’s (pre)historically accurate.....it’s nowhere close – but there is more variety and fun to be had. Interesting as they’re designed by the same person (Klaus Teuber) – but I suppose you can’t get it right all of the time.

After we finished no amount of persuading would get Pete to play another game (even Euphrat & Tigris!) so we all went to bed........well.... I sat up and stroked my ASL starter kit!!!!!

The next morning Pete had to shoot off early on Sunday – shame really – but I look forward to the next time. I certainly enjoyed myself – it’s rare that I even win one game against Pete!!!!

OP-free gaming

My experience of a con is often spoiled by encountering one of the several kinds of obnoxious person (OP) that this hobby seems to attract: know-it-alls, rules lawyers, whiners, analysis paralytics, or bullies, to name but a few. Finding yourself across the table from one of these as you embark on a long game - Civilization, Diplomacy, or 1830 for example - can be very depressing.

Thankfully, at MidCon last week I didn't meet a single OP. Almost as soon as I got there my friend old Nick Wells arrived and we had a happy couple of hours playing ASL Starter Kit and C&C:Ancients. And then things got even better when Vick Hall appeared - I hadn't seen him for a few years, but Vick was my editor when I ran a little subzine in A Little Original Sin, his postal Diplomacy zine in the twilight years of the last century. Vick is an ideal opponent - genial, courteous, swift, and a deadly player.

Next morning we set up Civilization (not Advanced) on a table and swiftly recruited two more willing volunteers, and were soon embarked on a 5-player game. Our new recruits (Steve Hilton and Bill Mayling) also turned out to be vice-free opponents, so our epic 8-hour journey through ancient history was a thoroughly pleasant experience. So here's to you: Nick, Vick, Steve and Bill - thanks for being ideal gaming partners and the very opposite of OPs.

MidCon manifesto

I'm off to MidCon this afternoon. It's a great boardgames convention held in a businessman's hotel in Birmingham, but it does have a rather Euro-ish flavour. So let's get a few things straight before I go. I will NOT be playing anything that involves:

- Collecting jewels
- Collapsing bridges in the Himalayas
- Impressing the king/queen/Cleopatra/your mum
- Fairies, elves, pixies etc

I WILL be playing games that involve:

- Building empires
- Crushing your enemies
- Getting rich and making everyone else poor
- Machine guns or death stars

I hope that's clear to everyone.

I spent last weekend in Cardiff, helping my old friend Nick to celebrate his 40th birthday by playing lots of wargames. Nick and I go back a long way. We first met in 1992 through the postal Diplomacy hobby, Nick introduced me to his gaming club in Salisbury, and we've been firm opponents ever since.

Over the weekend we played C&C Ancients, Railway Rivals, 6 Nimmt!, Struggle for Rome, and lots of Up Front! Nick had downloaded a campaign based on the 1944 struggle for Caen. This was an amazing wargaming experience. It gave a whole new flavour to each game to know that I had to guide my platoon through 12 scenarios, managing my roster for each engagement, nurturing green men, and finding replacements for casualties.

In the first scenario my plucky Brits were assaulting a pillbox. A Panther (a Panther!!!) turned up at the start of the second deck and after a few turns of being pounded by HE I decided to settle for a loss and get my men off the battlefield ASAP. In 2nd scenario we came back at night, with a (fairly puny) AFV for another crack at the pillbox. Unfortunately the Germans had laid some mines in the interval. My Staghound fought off Nick's infiltrator, but meanwhile my manoevre group was being killed off to break my squad. Scenario 3 had no pillbox - it was more like "Meeting of Patrols". At first I was doing really well, with my mortar covering an advance into a building at range 3. But Nick outflanked both my groups, wiping out the group in the building, and I withdrew with only 3 survivors for another loss.

At this point I had 13 VPs to Nick's 69! 9 out of my roster of 26 were KIA, and another 2 wounded. We had to pause at that point, but I have to say it is not looking good for the British.....

A great weekend, and I suppose appropriate that I lost pretty well everything we played - it was Nick's birthday after all.

Things are looking up....

It's always a slightly scary moment when you meet someone face-to-face that you have so far only got to know over the internet. Will he turn out to be a psychopath, or, even worse, someone with personal hygene issues? Thankfully Marty, who was fishing for local wargamers on BoardGameGeek, and who lives only a mile down the road, turned out to be neither, but was instead a charming and hospitable opponent when I met him on Monday.

He introduced me to Combat Commander: Europe, a game that has intrigued me without obsessing me, although I have been put off by negative reviews from Chris Farrell and the boys on the Point2Point podcast. We played scenario 3, with me in the attacker's role as the Germans. The mechanics of the game are nice and simple, with table-free resolution of fire attacks, and the cards add a whole dimansion of chaos and hand-management. And it is a chaotic game. Early on a fire broke out in the middle of the board, which continued to spread as the scenario wore on, so that by the end a large chunk of the battlefield was ablaze! New units popped up in strange places, and at one point I gained a hero who sprinted past the Russian HMG to capture a key victory hex.

I can't help making comparisons with the ASL Starter Kits. Compared to an ASL board, a CC:E board feels very small and cramped (in game terms - obviously the hexes are physically large). And the way the action unfolds feels strange when you are used to ASL's account of WW2 tactics. For much of the game we had infantry units in the woods blazing away at point-blank range without either running away or closing for close-combat. This felt odd - more like the American Civil War than WW2.

Still, I enjoyed it a lot, even though I lost by a huge margin, and will happily play it again. And now that I have a local wargaming opponent at last, I shouldn't have to wait too long!

Mainlining in Chiswick

I visited Iain's enviable home in Chiswick last Saturday, where we played 3-player 1829 Mainline. I played quite a bit of 1830 back when I was younger - in fact I used it as a gateway game, assembling a group of colleagues to play in the staff canteen once a week after work. They loved it! Non-gamers these days are soft, insisting on Settlers and Carcassone....

Anyway, 1829 was a bit of a surprise. It's very different to its stablemates. Francis Tresham has opened the whole thing up, introducing quite a bit of randomness with the share deal, and also opening up the board by removing restrictions on yellow tile-laying and the upgrades. And the bonus system gives the companies a way to get ready cash when they need it. The result is a free-flowing, less deterministic game, where there is less need to calculate ahead every last dollar for that critical train upgrade. I lost, but I liked it.

We had to cash up after three and a half hours in order to watch a certain rugby game, and I'm sure there was at least another hour and a half in the game. (And we were using my lovely new poker chips, which speed things up quite a bit.) So a touch long for what it is. It will never supplant 1830 or 1825 in my affections, but it's a nice change of pace, and a good introduction to the wonderful world of 18XX.

The price of knowledge

The gaming is getting very sparse now that my Masters is in full flow. (Even in the good times I manage less in a year than Brian Bankler does in a month!) Since I became a student I've played Lost Cities and Fluxx with Sue, soloed an ASLSK#2 scenario ("88s at Zon") and won a PBEM game of Puerto Rico. Oh and I've beaten my step-nephew Tom at Napoleon at Waterloo a few times on Hexwar.

It's all pretty scanty.

Was looking forward to a session with Iain Cheyne this Saturday, but England's dratted rugby success has curtailed that.

Oh well, at least there's Midcon next month to look forward to....

So at last, I'm a student again. Yesterday I enrolled at the Institute of Psychiatry (at King's College London) to do a full-time Masters in Neuroscience. Teaching starts tomorrow!

It felt strange to be with a group of 40 or so freshly graduated youngsters. There is only one other old guy - a psychiatrist from Slovakia - but the young folks are being very friendly and not treating me like some kind of freak.

The cycling is going OK so far, except for getting caught in a cloudburst yesterday afternoon. 11 miles each way, it's a fair old distance, but only takes me an hour and a quarter, about the same as tubing and bussing it. Only cheaper and healthier.

Tomorrow we do some chemistry revision and sessions on how to revise, how to do coursework, how to pick up your email, that kind of stuff. Then on Monday it's down to the real thing - receptors, amino acids and proteins, rat brain anatomy, etc. I can't wait....

Never attack across open ground!

My son Phil came over last Sunday for lunch and a game of Up Front!. We played City Fight 501 - thanks to a guy I've never met called Andy Maly who, many years ago, kindly posted me a whole stack of Up Front! articles from The General, all the away across the Atlantic at his own expense. If you're reading Andy - thanks again! I'm still reading them and using them.

Phil chose 3 small American groups, with reinforcements to come on later, while I spent the whole 501 points up front on high morale Germans, an MMG and a LMG. My firebase was awe-inspiring, as Phil found when he tried to rush me across open ground. He was inspired I think by Cpt. Winter's cries of "Keep moving!" in Band of Brothers. Unfortunately without adequate fire support these tactics led to a massacre.

Poor Phil, after Up Front! we sat down to watch Kiki's Delivery Service, but Phil was exhausted by his exertions and fell asleep before the appearance of the mandatory airship that you always seem to get in anime films.....

Computers ate my week

A frustrating week with my computer. Windows interface going screwy, and unable to connect to my wireless router. All these faults are intermittent, hard to track down. Hard to Google for answers when you can't get online. Think I've tracked it down to my cheapo wireless card from EBuyer - a new upmarket card is in the post.

I thought it'd take me a day to get my car listed for sale on EBay - with these problems it's taken me all week. Today I can connect to the internet and finally managed to get a nice listing into EBay. Just about to press the GO button, and suddenly I can't login to EBay any more. No idea why.

Sigh. I HATE computers.......