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.

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....

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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??

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

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

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

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

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 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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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......

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

Breathe - less stuff, more life

Breathe is a Christian network for simpler living. A space to think about how we handle money, time and possessions in a Christian way. Non-judgemental, realistic and simple to be part of (no one-commune-fits-all solutions).

(thanks Annie!)

I put a couple more games up on eBay last night. Have a look, and maybe even make a bid!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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:

columbus rules
columbus map

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

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

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

Christmas stocktaking

Christmas has been good for my games collection - my family seem to have finally woken up to the idea that Peter likes games! and maybe one would make a good gift for him. Now how many years/decades did it take for that little light bulb to switch on?

Zertz: Phil was really excited about presenting this to me on Christmas morning. I love it of course, like all the Gipf games it looks good enough to eat, and the gameplay is as intriguing and fascinating as Yinsh and Dvonn. And spookily it was also on the wish list I gave to my Mum, though luckily she didn't choose it as well. I must have been psychically radiating Zertz-desire for weeks.

Oltremare: Mum phoned Leisure Games a few weeks ago and ordered this for me (having asked me for a shortlist.) She originally thought that Oltremare Zertz Tichu was the name of a single game, bless her. Once that was sorted out she got stung by the new expensive edition of Oltremare (which I wasn't aware of when I made the list) which cost a bit more than I wanted her to spend on me. And then it didn't turn up - a week after Christmas it still has not arrived. The perils of using the post these days. In my day we never had these problems with the post I'm sure. Hopefully Leisure Games will sort me out with a replacement.

Dune: I picked this up on EBay for a mere £22. The auction completed on Christmas Day. Bad time of year for selling games - all the geeks take their eye off the ball for a few days, with the result that there are bargains to be had! It arrived yesterday in great condition and complete. I'm very excited - I've been reading about this game for years.

According to BGG my collection stands at 118 now. Moreover I have a whole load of preorders from GMT lined up for the near future - Battle Cry Ancients, The Burning Blue, Here I Stand, Clash of Giants II can all be expected to arrive on my doorstep shortly. As if I haven't got enough wargames already. So time for another clearout. This is my hitlist:

Axis and Allies: Long and slightly daft. Huge box too.

Battle Cry: Another huge box, and why keep it when I have Memoir 44?

7th Fleet Pretty but complex wargame, when will I ever play this?

Throne World: Looks long and fiddly, ugly components. If I want sci-fi I will play Dune or Merchant of Venus. Or Starfarers of Catan which I may be able to afford after I've sold this lot!

Grand Illusion: More complex than I was expecting from Ted, and the usual issues with post-pub rules changes, which quite frankly I'm getting sick of.

Triumph and Glory: Another one with moving target rules. If I want tactical then This Accursed Civil War looks much cleaner.

The Napoleonic Wars: Great subject, but all those little decks of cards! And the rules are a disaster.

Kings and Things: Never been enthused enough to read the rules. Time to leave, grasshopper...

Slick!: An ancient sibling to Railway Rivals.

Sherlock Holmes (card game): Used to play this a lot, but that was years ago.

Anyone want to make me an offer, or talk me out of the whole thing?

Tag: boardgames

Advent of gaming

Since my paraglider is in the dry-dock for a few weeks after I recently wrapped it around a tree, I have a bit more time for boardgaming. So this week has been good for gaming - last Sunday Les came over to try out War of the Ring. I have been busily painting the figures for a while and had completed the Shadow forces by the time Sunday came. They looked superb arrayed on the board, but badly showing up the Free Peoples in their glistening coats of blue plastic.

It took me about 45 minutes to take Les through the rules. Les was very patient but was starting to look a bit glazed over by the end (especially as he had a hangover to contend with as well!) As the beginner he opted to play the Shadow. We both thoroughly enjoyed the epic struggle that followed. With "Mithril Coat" and "Wizard's Staff" I felt able to push the Fellowship forward twice every turn. Les was a little slow getting his offensive rolling, and also had consistent bad luck on the combat dice all through the game. After about 4 hours of play (plus a break for supper) I managed to get the Fellowship to Gorgoroth with remarkably little corruption. I love the panoramic sweep of this game and its faithfulness to the books - I'm very anxious to play again. Meanwhile the men of Rohan are getting their coat of green paint over the Christmas break....

Then on Monday evening after work it was over to Keith's for my second go at Caylus. I have to admit that my first play a few weeks ago left me underwhelmed - baffled by the rules, squinting at the graphics, dismayed by the playing time, and confused about tactics. But this time around I felt much better about the game. I benefitted from Keith's running through the rules again for John's benefit, plus I managed to keep the rules at my end of the table and took frequent looks between my turns, so I felt much more on top of the mechanics, and I actually started to enjoy some of the decision making. Fairly early on I built a church and enjoyed getting my free prestige point every time someone popped in for a visit. And I was gratified to come in second (but way behind Keith whom we allowed a free hand in the gold-mines for the last few turns). So yes, I now would be happy to play Caylus again, but having said that I would far rather play say Amun-Re, which does the same sort of thing as Caylus but in a much more interesting and elegant way.

Tag: boardgames

I went to see The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe last night - drove all the way to Winchester for the nice independent screen there. It was packed. I was very impressed with the film - with a couple of caveats. Lucy (a crucial role) was just right. The designs were very much based on the Pauline Baines illustrations - excellent. But I was disappointed by the battle - much, much too big and long. Battles in Narnia generally involve a few hundred combatants and last a few (very violent) minutes. So as I feared the influence of Peter Jackson had a bad effect there. I also didn't like the silly frozen river scene. But many, many more good things than bad in the film.

And by the way, this column in the Guardian by Zoe Williams on the subject of the film's "dodgy" Christian subtext is well worth a read.

If there was an award for "Best Game Blog Posting of 2005" (maybe there is? - I'm so out of touch) this would be my nomination: Chris Farrell's tips for getting Civilization back onto the table. This superb article gave me a nostalgic wistfulness for past Civ sessions, as well as an persistent itch to do it again.

Remember that this, along with Francis Tresham's 1829, was essentially the first "big" eurogame. It's a direct ancestor in style to currently popular high-end euros like Power Grid, Age of Steam, Goa, Die Macher, and Puerto Rico. Unlike the Avalon Hill-style games that were then in the vogue – games that tended to make some attempt at simulating something – Civilization is a themed game. That is to say, some stuff in the game may not necessarily make immediate intuitive sense in terms of simulation, but it's in there because the game requires it. Strictly from a systems perspective, this is where Advanced Civilization went awry – it added a bunch of stuff for various reasons of "simulation", but wrecked the finely-tuned underlying mechanisms. This is not to denigrate the theme of Civilization, which is excellent and better than most current euros – but I think it's important to the enjoyment of the game to realize that in many ways this game was way ahead of its time, and is not cut from the same cloth as other Avalon Hill games of that era.

Tag: boardgames

Losing Beowulf

7:30 yesterday evening witnessed me hard at work in my living room with Beowulf and an adjustable spanner. I was setting up a gaming table and then laying out the board and cards etc ready for a session with the Farnborough group. Keith and Trevor were late which was fine, as it gave Les and me time to chat about some of Les's Essen purchases. In particular, I was interested to learn that he picked up the Euphrat & Tigris card game, which I would love to try out

Beowulf only took 10 minutes to explain - the episodic structure of the game helps a lot, as some of the details can safely be postponed. As usually happens when I introduce a game, I got badly stuffed. I committed heavily to several early auctions but lost them all the same. The resulting wound and scratches left me preoccupied with avoiding further injuries for the rest of the game, and I was always short of cards and gold. The final scores were Trevor 33, Keith 31, Les 21 and me 12. When asked what the secret is Trevor replied simply, "I looked ahead." Which on reflection is probably the best piece of simple strategy advice available for this game

We finished off with a fun game of Formula Motor Racing which I also lost hands down. My final card play was a "Charge" which gained me about 5 places before my engine blew up attempting to take the lead! This is a great little game, light, but with lots of interesting tactical choices. More skilful than it looks (and yes, this is from someone who nearly always loses at it!)

Tag: boardgames

Lanzarote Snapshot

Wednesday 23rd Nov, 12:22pm, the Famara ridge

Laying out my glider ready for the next flight. Make sure there are no tangles. Switch on my vario and make a note of the altitude. Switch on my radio and do a quick comms check. Bundle up my glider and walk forward to takeoff. The takeoff at Famara is intimidating. We are standing behind a low tumbledown wall which sits at the top of a 1000 foot drop down to the plain below. It's not a vertical drop, but very steep and rocky, likely to kill someone who fell down it. There is a little cinder runway from the wall down to the edge - 4 or 5 paces then nothingness - a clear view over the plain to the coast about 5 km away, little volcanoes and the beach.

The air is full of paragliders and hanggliders, they appeared seemingly from nowhere while we were driving back from a wild-goose chase to Mirador on the Northern tip of the island. The sun is coming round now and striking the rocky face of the ridge, heating it. Cumulus are building in the blue sky overhead and the wind is nicely onto the ridge and not too strong. The next couple of hours are going to be classic flying conditions.

It's my turn. Andy and Jamie are waiting to give me a hand with my launch. Glider laid out on the cinders behind me. Risers draped over my outstretched arms, brake handles in hand. Check for a gap in the airspace. Andy - "Launch when you're ready." Shoulders forward, I push forward and feel the pull of the wing inflating behind me. Andy and Jamie grab the brake lines and get the wing under control then push me forwards towards the edge. "Run, Pete, run! Brake gently, that's it, keep running!" I power forward down the runway towards the void. As I pull the brakes my feet leave the ground and suddenly I'm out over the ridge, trying to keep running even though I'm airborne, then sitting back into the harness, leaning over to turn right as I join the crowd cruising up and down the ridge.

Andy over the radio - "Good launch Pete! Keep a good look-out." I crane my head around, looking behind on both sides, below, above. Brightly coloured wings all around me. The vario is beeping in the lift coming up the face of the ridge. I carefully look behind my risers then turn left, heading back along the ridge into the crowd. Advice coming over the radio from Andy - "Get closer in to the ridge. Keep plenty of clear space around you. Look before you turn." I'm picking up strong lift from a big eroded gully at the bottom of the face. As I fly past takeoff I'm looking down on Andy and the others, tiny figures looking up at me. I give a thumbs up. I decide not to fly on to the end of the ridge where everyone else is turning, but to turn straight away back into the lift coming off the big gully. I do this for several beats, working this short stretch of the ridge where the lift is concentrated. I'm looking down on many of the other wings now. I must be 400ft above the ridge line, and decide to try a 360 turn in the lift. The wing rattles over my head in the turbulence on the edge of the thermal. I tighten my turn, fighting the thermal's tendency to push me away. The vario is beeping frantically, I keep on with the 360s.

Looking down I notice that I am drifting behind the ridge. Andy over the radio - "Push forward Pete". I point the glider into the wind and grope for the speed-bar. After a few minutes I'm clear of the ridge again and free to seek out more lift. Bumpy air - great! - that means I'm on the edge of a thermal. Turn the wing against the push, listen for the vario, turn, turn, adjusting my outside brake, feeling for the thermal's centre. Lost that one, pushing through sink now, the vario moaning. I see a gull above me, soaring effortlessly. I fly over to investigate, and catch his lift.

The crowd on the ridge has all scattered now, hunting lift out over the plain. Far out to my left a guy on a narrow orange wing is doing acro spirals. Everyone is below me, a couple of hanggliders are exploring my thermal hundreds of feet below me. Andy on the radio - "Pete's been top of the stack for half an hour!!"

Still getting higher. The air is cold, and becoming damp. Wisps of mist all around me. The clouds are beside me, all around me, no longer above me. This is it, cloudbase, I'm 3000ft above sea level, 1750ft above takeoff. I can see clear to the Northern end of the island.

This is the moment. I have fulfilled my childhood dream of flying among the clouds. The dream that prompted me to sign up for paraglider training last year. The dream that drove me on through all the tough days of ground training and getting dragged through the mud on the North Downs at Green Dragons. I finally did it - I flew to cloudbase.

Tag: paragliding

I'm off to Lanzarote in the Canary Islands tomorrow, for a week of paragliding with my club Green Dragons. Packing has been challenging - my wing, harness, boots, helmet and instruments pretty well use up my 20kg allowance, so changes of clothes, washkit and towel are going as hand luggage, and a book to read has to be stuffed into my pocket. Nevertheless I'm determined to pack a game, so the cards have been removed from my Formula Motor Racing box and popped in a little ziploc bag, to be stuffed into my shoulder bag along with the rules and the little cars. Hopefully I will get a chance to try it out with my fellow flyers over a beer in the warm Saharan-longitude evenings.

Tag: boardgames, paragliding

When non-gamers ASK for a game

Sue's best friend Linda (to whom I introduced Lord of the Rings last year) has recently been demanding another game session. So last Saturday evening she and her husband Balazs came over for a meal with us, and after the dishes were stacked away we adjourned to the lounge for a game of Settlers. Now for years the Settlers rules have been completely internalized for me, so I was slightly surprised by the looks of shocked puzzlement as I gently attempted to explain them to the three newbies. It's easy for us to forget how complex even our "gateway games" must seem to even intelligent outsiders. But once we were under way it all became a lot clearer to everyone. Of course I was so busy shepherding the others through the first few turns that, by the time I began to pay attention to my own position, it was irremediably screwed. Oh well, I suppose we have to make sacrifices for the good of the hobby. Any of the other three could have won, it was very close, but in the event Linda - after building her first 3 villages next to the desert for some reason! - had the edge on us and got the win.

Even Sue seemed to enjoy it, and afterwards she commented on the importance of randomness for her enjoyment of a game - because it makes it feel less like an intimidating intellectual trial. In other words, you can always blame the dice!

Tag: boardgames

The priceless gift of local opponents

I'm very thankful for Keith, Trevor and Les, my local opponents. When I moved here 2 years ago I wasn't at all sure that I would find a congenial group of gamers to play with. But thanks to Dave Farquhar, who read my blog and contacted me inviting me to visit his group in Farnborough, I found a group of friendly and hospitable guys who have become good friends as well. Tragically Dave died suddenly last year before I got a chance to meet him, but his wife Janet followed up her husband's initial email with another one giving me Keith's contact details.

I've had two good sessions with these guys over the last few days. Last Thursday we gathered at Keith's place to try out one of his Essen purchases - Caylus. I got off to a shaky start with this, struggling to see how it all fits together. Les on the other hand, who likes resource management games, took to it like a duck to water. We wound it up after 3 hours - and we were only about half way down the long and winding road - but Les was clearly in the lead. I'm a bit concerned about the playing time - we need to play again soon before we all forget the rules again - and I was getting a mild dose of that "Princes of Florence" feeling I sometimes get with Euros where fairly complex mechanics don't seem to relate to anything in the real world. But I would certainly give it another go before I formulate a strong opinion either way.

Then yesterday evening Les and I met up in The Fox for a two-player session. We got the usual curious questions from folk in the bar (must remember to take business cards from the local game shop next time) as Les introduced me to Roma, which I liked a lot. Possibly because I beat Les twice at it. It's another Schotten-Totten variant I suppose, very nicely done with lots of interesting interactions between the cards - I like the action dice choices. Both games seeemd to demonstrate the unstoppable power of the Forum card which slightly concerns me. Then we went on to Dvonn, which was new to Les. I hope I didn't put him off the game too much by beating him twice at this one too! I enjoy this game a lot and I love the way the tension slowly builds until the whole position dramatically collapses at the end. I crawled home feeling very tired but happy.

Tag: boardgames

Another great tip for War of the Ring

A penny coin is exactly the right size for glueing onto the bottom of the Nazgul figures to stop them toppling over so easily. If any Americans are reading who do not have access to our royal currency, I will happily sell you some pennies for this purpose, at $2 each plus shipping.

Tag: boardgames

War of the Rings on the web

A brief guide to useful websites:

Fantasy Flight - beautiful to look at, but also has a wealth of strategy articles, plus the official FAQ, and of course the rules.

A playtester's website - ugly to look at but has some interesting stuff, especially interviews with the designers. It also has card manifests for the Free Peoples and the Shadow - useful to print out for refernce if your eyes struggle with the cards.

So you want to paint your War of the Ring set - a classic BGG article that starts with the immortal advice, "Don’t do it. Really. It isn't worth it. It is a lot of work, a whole lot of work."

An inspirational photo - again on BGG, illustrating what a superb effect can be got from a relatively quick and easy paint job.

The celebrated turn-order summary - again from BGG. To be honest I wouldn't recommend this at all. It's confusing and even a little misleading. Just read the rules.

Chris Farrell - rather damning the game with faint praise, with an interesting discussion in the comments thread.

A more positive review - from the venerable Tom Vasel.

Tag: boardgames

The Festival of War, held at my flat last weekend, was a great success. Estimated casualties were about 15 million, mainly thanks to a refighting of the First World War, but the Third Crusade and the War of the Ring must have added a few hundred thousand each as well.

Quite a few games were played, not all of them out-and-out wargames:

Blue Moon: I taught this one to Dave when he turned up on Thursday evening. I love this game intensely but I suspect Dave was slightly underwhelmed. Not wargamey enough for Dave probably. I even let him play with the Mimix but he seemed blind to their charms.

Wings of War: This got played in the pub on Friday by Dave, Nick and John while they were waiting for me to get home from work and cook their dinner! We played it again on Saturday evening. I thoroughly enjoyed this, reminded me of happy hours playing SPI's Flying Circus when I was a kid. Phil had an amazing comeback, he looked like a dead duck and his partner Nick was already down in flames, but he held out for ages - after I had accidentally flown off the table he was in with a real chance of shooting John down in a final head-on shootout, but lost on the final draw of the card.

Beowolf: We played this on Friday evening, after Simon had arrived, a curry had been cooked and eaten, and significant amounts of booze consumed. It was a lot of fun, especially as Nick managed to find a sexual subtext in just about everything that happened in the game!

Paths of Glory: Dave and Nick spent most of the weekend playing this. Dave was the Germans - of course! - but got off to a slow start as he concentrated on event plays to get to Total War. Later on he broke through into Italy. The game went into 1917 on Sunday when Nick had to leave for his train, but Dave looked like a clear winner by that point.

Crusader Rex: I taught this to John on Saturday, a straightforward task - the rules to this game are so beautifully simple and brief. We drew sides and John got the Franks, a tough side to play on your first time. I managed to split the Christian beachhead in two and after taking Jerusalem cleared the whole of the southern end of the map of the infidels. I think John suffered because he couldn't resist being fairly aggressive early on in the game. This swamped his replacement pool with casualties and made for a long delay before the first crusaders finally arrived. It ended with a sudden death victory for me in the fifth turn.

War of the Ring: Dave and I finally got to play this on Sunday afternoon after everyone had left (apart from John who was snoozing). It felt tricky to explain this, the lengthy rulebook doesn't help and the rules for the companions and the hunt are not simple to convey. But once we got going (with Dave cast against type as the Free Peoples) the play flows very simply and cleanly. The biggest problem we both had as forty-somethings was reading the text on the cards! I enjoyed this a lot, even though we didn't finish. In fact I'm getting faintly obsessive about this game - rereading the rules over breakfast every morning, and planning how to paint the figures, even going so far as painting a trial figure.

Another highlight of the weekend was a trip to the Games Shop in Aldershot where we must have spent about £150 between us, on such goodies as the shop's entire stock of Wings of War expansions, ASL Starter Kit 2, San Juan and Chariot Lords.

A special mention must go to Phil who cooked a glorious four-course meal for us all on Saturday evening. Thanks also to Dave, John, Nick and Simon who made the journey to Farnham. Let's do it again soon!

Tag: boardgames