Clippage

I am finally punching out the counters in my ASL Starter Kit #2. I have been doing this chore on and off for at least the last 35 years. I think the first wargame I ever punched counters for was Avalon Hill's Waterloo. Since then we have had personal computers, the internet, mobile phones, robot spaceships exploring the solar system - but wargame counters are exactly the same as they always were. They don't punch out properly, they tear, you get wispy bits on the corners. Note too that these products are from the USA - the most technologically advanced nation on the planet. I bet they are still using the same dies on the machines as they were in 1970.

One thing has changed though - for the very first time in my long wargaming career I am taking the nail clippers to my new counters. Very light clippage - no octagonal counters for me thanks - but clippage nonetheless.

A rashly public Lent commitment

Following Maggi Dawn's suggestion, I intend to give up buying toys over Lent. You know the sort of things: CDs, DVDs, computer games, books, and (gasp!) boardgames. It's gonna be tough.....

Online is where it's at...... for now

In the absence of real opponents I'm hitting the web servers.

Tipped off by Moritz Eggert (?) from The DiceTower, I am trying out HexWar, which allows you to play old SPI wargames by email. The free try-out, Napoleon at Waterloo, is a trip down memory lane for me. I got it when I first subscribed to S&T back in the 70's, and I used to play at lunchtime with friends at school. Back then my nickname was "The General".

I've also usually got a couple of games of Amun Re on the go at SpielByWeb - I'm not doing very well at the moment, though I did win one (somehow) a few weeks ago.

But hopefully soon I'll be at a table again looking my opponents in the eye.....

I played Napoleon with Dave last night. An old classic. (I mean the game, but could equally well apply to Dave!) My Gamma Two Games edition is dated 1974. We actually played with Dave's Avalon Hill edition (1979) which has much clearer printing on the blocks, but also has a battle board which unnecessarily (I thought) turns the simple battle resolution procedure into an ASL-style procedural nightmare.

I took the Allies. I played this game a lot when I was a teenager, and I thought I was quite good at it. What illusions we cherish about ourselves. Dave soundly demolished my forward deployment with a centre/left strategy. We switched sides, and I sent the Grand Army up the centre. Dave used cavalry screens to slow me down, and managed to link the Prussians with the English to defeat me again.

Sigh. The only way to salvage any self-esteem was to cynically introduce Dave to a new Euro, so out came Lost Cities, which I duly beat him at twice while he figured out how the game works. It was low work, but my ego was desperate for affirmation. Sometime you have to do these things......

A sad day for the hobby - Chris Farrell is retiring from blogging. Chris's writing about games was the gold standard as far as I was concerned, and his blog was always the first one I went to if BlogLines indicated that he had posted. His writing shaped the way I think about gaming, and he was responsible for pointing me towards so many great discoveries - Rommel in the Desert, Taj Mahal, Blue Moon City, and many others. I admire the breadth of Chris's enthusiasm - that his expertise encompasses euros, wargames, miniatures, CCGs and RPGs astonishes me. How does he find the time for all that gaming?! Above all, Chris knows how to write. I will miss reading his blog very much. Thankyou Chris, and enjoy your retirement.

I'm sure you'll agree that an overhaul of my sidebar was long overdue. This week my project at work has been cancelled so I've got time on my hands, giving me a chance to finally get around to it. Now all my blog links are handled by BlogLines, which will make it more natural to keep them fresh, I hope. I've also weeded out and reclassified my links to non-blog websites. In particular, have a look at the "Good Causes" section - this is stuff that matters to me.

You feeling lucky?

I'm just coming to the end of three games on SpielByWeb - two Amun-Re's and a Reef Encounter, and I'm feeling the need of more challenges! So here's an invitation to join me for a rollicking game of Amun-Re on SpielByWeb - it's called "Thutmose IV" and the password is "nimrods".

You remember what trials I went through trading my Battle Cry for a copy of Nexus Ops located in America?

Well, I finally broke the shrink wrap off Nexus Ops and played it through solo, and you know what? It was really worth all that hassle!

This game is such great fun, even solo. With other players it must be fantastic! It's the pinnacle of the evolutionary tree that started with Risk and went on to spawn Axis & Allies, Twilight Imperium and the rest. Ignore the Hasbro label - this one's been really well thought out. Easy to learn, quick to play, lots of incentives to get stuck in and attack, interesting special cards and special powers for the units. And I love the dayglo bits as well, the game looks really striking on the table. I suppose I would love it even more if the hexes were planets and the bits were spaceships, but that aside, it looks on first sight pretty much perfect for its genre.

Now to try introducing it to my local group of dyed-in-the-wool Eurogamers.....

Catching up

I've been falling behind a bit with my gaming news....

Last Monday (15th) I joined Les at the wonderful Plume of Feathers in Crondall for a game of Blue Moon. The new twist - we were each to bring two decks we had built using the Inquisitors rules. A first for both of us.

I had spent a good hour on Sunday building my Aqua-based deck, using the inquisitor Swift-Fist because I anticipated getting a chance to shuffle my discards back at some point. Les had spent 5 minutes in his lunch-break building a Mimix-based deck with the same inquisitor - my deck wiped the floor with him. Les's sloppy preparation exacts its price! On examination we found that Les's deck was 7-moons short, so that may well have contributed to his defeat.

Next up - my Khind-based deck vs. his Vulca-based deck. I won again, and this time both decks were correctly built!

We finished with a quick game of Aton, where Les rebuilt his self-esteem with a 50/32 victory.

Good company, good beer, great games. What more could one ask?

Valley games are planning to reprint Hannibal. I have a copy of the AH version, but I'm very tempted to preorder the new one as well.

Is that so wrong?

OK then - in response to popular demand: I wasn't there, but apparently Sue used a small selection of NanoFictionary cards, some of which were slightly modified to fit the characters and settings of the Ruth story in the Bible. E.g. "A distant City" was a perfect fit already. She prepped 3 creative people from the congregation, gave them a handful of cards, and asked them to prepare a little story. They told their stories in church, and everyone else voted for their favourite.

Sue then preached on the way that the stories we tell as a church community affect the way we think of ourselves and the way we serve God together. She meditated on the Ruth story and some of the alternative outcomes that could have come of those characters, settings, and problems. And on the way the Ruth story has been important to Jews and Christians ever since.

Hope that helps.

My amazing girlfriend Sue works for a small (and rather unusual) church in North London. She's not a gamer in the (slightly obsessive) way that we use the word around here, but she actually used Nanofictionary (slightly modified to fit the Book of Ruth) as the basis for the interactive bit of her sermon last Sunday!

I had a great time last Thursday - the local group came over to play Blue Moon City. This game fully lived up to expectations. It felt complex to explain, but we very quickly got into the flow once we were playing. I think everyone was as impressed as I was. This game looks like a classic to me. Final scores: Peter(4) Trevor(3) Les(2) Keith(1).

We finished with Space Dealer. Les's first time, so basic rules again. Good fun, I got completely left behind! Les(19) Trevor(19) Keith(14) Peter(12).

Right, enough of the soppy stuff - let's get back to some cardboard conflict! Who's up for a quick game of Samurai on MaBiWeb? The game is called "Castle in the Sky" and the password is "nimrods". See you there!

A clarification

She said yes.......

New Year's Day in Bali

I got my first game of Indonesia on New Year's Day, I was invited over by friends at the London Mennonite Centre in leafy Highgate. Vic gave us a thorough rules introduction lasting an hour - during which Don fell asleep - and we got started by 3:30. I had the same feeling I had when I first played 1830 - feeling my way i nto a complex, deterministic game, with lots of levers to pull and unsure which levers do what. Not surprisingly I drifted for the first few turns, and made some bad decisions (though I'm not entirely sure what they were!). The other 3 players, who were also playing for the first time, seemed able to analyze the game more effectively than I was, especially Don, who won handily in spite of having missed half the rules.

We finished at 7pm with the following scores: Don (775), Vic (709), Chris (552), Me (404). Many thanks to Vic and the folks at the LMC for their hospitality.

A few first impressions (coloured by my defeat, no doubt).

I am quickly developing a strong aversion to the "bidding for turn order" mechanism. Even in Indonesia (where it is softened by the way that you don't really lose the money you bid) it smacks of lazy design - give them a bunch of options, no need to balance them out or make them equally interesting, let the players sort it out in the auction. And what real-world business activity can "bidding for turn order" possibly correspond to? It breaks the spell for me, and it is a prime opportunity for the AP people to freeze their brains for 10 minutes before deciding to pass.

The map is beautiful, really beautiful, and fairly functional as well, though the scrolly script is hard to read at a glance. And I hate the anachronistic microwave ovens.

I had problems reading the situation - the links between markers on the board and company certificates in front of the players are not at all clear visually.

Calculating out the shipping routes and payouts rapidly becomes a complex, even bewildering task. The physical design doesn't really offer much help with getting through this.

Analysis paralysis - it's a deterministic game with a lot of variables. Players with AP tendencies will tend to freeze over at nearly every decision point in this game.

On balance I think I'm glad I didn't buy it at a discount when I had the opportunity at Midcon. I would be happy to try it again soon, but I have plenty of heavyweight games already sitting on my shelves waiting to be played for the first time (Die Macher, Revolution, Dune, Shadow of the Emperor).

The search for victory

I was on the road with Sue over Christmas, visiting her family then my family. Various games were played along the way, with increasing frustration at my inability to win anything.

Christmas Day, at Sue's family gathering in Market Bosworth. In the evening I persuaded everyone to try 6 Nimmt! Sue won the first round with a score of zero, and declared she doesn't like this game. Her sister-in-law Maggie, who also doesn't like the game, won the next round.

Boxing Day in Sandbach, with my brother Tim and his family. I taught 8-year-old nephew George how to play Risk. He gave me a sound thrashing, and spent the rest of the visit calling me “Failure” instead of “Uncle Peter”.

Wednesday, at my mother's home in Ashley. There's no point even suggesting a game to Mum, but in the evening Sue kindly played Fluxx with me. We played four rounds – Sue won them all.

Thursday, back at Sue's in Wood Green. Sue suggested Scrabble. Ah! I'm good at Scrabble. But not as good as Sue it seems. She thrashed me by about an 80 point margin – I never had a chance. She was raised by crossword addicts.

I was getting desperate. I had to do something drastic to change my luck, end this run of defeats.

Saturday, meeting Sue in London before going over to my son Phil's for dinner, I asked her to marry me. After dinner Phil pulled out Gang of Four (one of my gifts to him) and I won, yes WON! Then a quick game of NanoFictionary. I felt inspired, and told a great little story with some local colour – and WON again!

Sometimes you have to do something drastic to change your luck.....

Seasonal post

It's Christmas Eve and the guns are falling silent on BoardGameGeek.....

Not much gaming to report over here. I've been fiddling with BattleLore. One banner was missing - a quick email to Days of Wonder secured a replacement with no problems. Great customer service (I still can hardly believe what I'm hearing about Rio Grande's very different attitude to fixing the faulty cards in El Grande).

I've downloaded and played through the excellent introduction to Magic the Gathering from Wizards of the Coast, in preparation for a match with Les sometime I hope.
And I'm having my butt kicked in various play-by-web games of Shadow of the Emperor and Amun-Re!

I am heading off this afternoon on a grand tour of the midlands, taking in various gatherings of Sue's family and my family. Packing 6 Nimmt, Fluxx, and Bohnanza in the faint hope of steering people away from Guesstures or DVD quiz games. At least when I get back there is Die Macher to look forward to on New Year's Day!

Here's wishing you a very happy Christmas. I hope you find some games under the tree!

The Return of..... the Wargamer!

While no wargamer's wargamer, I've been in and out of the wargamers' scene ever since I was a kid. I don't have a local wargamer opponent, so I was pleased when Les, who is not a wargamer (not yet anyway!), agreed to come over on Sunday afternoon to play War of the Ring again. This time Les felt confident enough of the rules to take the Free Peoples - who have a lot more rules to remember and options to worry about. Unfortunately for Les, the blue dice left the Fellowship loitering over a late breakfast at Rivendell, and when they finally did get away there was a distinct lack of urgency about their progress. Meanwhile the Elves could not save Dol Amroth, and the Woodland Realm fell after a bitter struggle. The plucky elves of Rivendell laid seige to Moria, but Aragorn was trapped and killed in Minas Tirith almost as soon as he was crowned. Les was preparing for a last titanic struggle in Helm's Deep, when the Witch King slipped down from the mountains of Angmar to snatch Rivendell and victory. And so Middle Earth was plunged into endless darkness......

Oh well.

We had an hour left, so another opportunity to make a wargamer of Les with a quick game of Memoir 44 - Operation Lettuch. I think Les's mind was still in the heroic world of Middle Earth with its heroic charges and last stands. Whatever the reason, he repeatedly ordered his Germans forward across open ground in the face of well-entrenched American positions. That sort of tactic just doesn't work in World War 2!

Oh dear, I hope Les wasn't too discouraged by his double defeat yesterday, and will keep alive a spark of ambition to become one day..... a wargamer!

The Way Forward

Through his job, my son Phil is becoming a bit of an expert on SEO (Search Engine Optimization). He has done a bit of research, and tells me that if I use the word "wargamer" a lot in my blog, my daily hits will go through the roof. OK, anything for more traffic, let's give it a try!