Wil Wheaton shows off Small World

OK, more hot babes!

This look interesting. Check out the lava lass or whatever she is.

More stuff on the way -- this time Days of Wonder

Wow, I wish these guys would spread it out a little more. Now Days of Wonder is charging for some of their newest stuff -- Winter Wars and Disaster at Dieppe for Memoir '44 and Be Not Afraid, Necromancer Island and Be Not Afraid Catapult for Small World.

Taking care of customers

This is what I call taking care of customers. This new expansion is going to include a tray for holding all the game's expansions.

Bad journalism

It appears that a British newspaper mixed up Days of Wonder's Small World with a similarly named online game that's linke do a case of parental neglect in England.

Days of Wonder is issuea press release ont he controversy, although it's unclear whether the newspaper had responded or issued a correction yet.

This is the kind of thing that unfortunately seems to happen all to often when newspapers delve into any kind of specialist area. Too many journalists are not cautious enough when the report on topics they don't know well and are not wary of what they don't know they don't know.

Unusual session of Small World

Started the New Year off just the same as the Old Year ended, with a game of Small World, but with considerably more success.

It was also an odd game, as neither the Young General nor the Old Warrior declined a race!

Yes, we went the entire 10-turn 2-player games with the same races.

In the case of the Old Warrior this seems to have been a very defensible position, as the Hill Elves were a very profitable combination. The immortality of the Elves always makes them formidable, and the Hill power added a fairly stable and easy-to achieve 2-3 coin bonus every turn. We were playing with the Expansions, including the Leaders.

The Young Warrior, meanwhile, had grabbed the Dragonmaster Orcs right off the top of the pile and was having a grand time with them. Eventually, though, it became clear that the long-term trend wasn't in their favor, as they were losing orcs occasionally while the Elves stayed as strong as ever. Additionally the Orcs were reluctant to ransom their leader from the Elves (very orcish behavior, that), no doubt wanting to avoid the cycle that the Elves fell into, of losing and ransoming their leader every turn, which was also costly.

Making it hard for the Young General was that none of the other Race/Power combos looked all that great for dealing with the Elves either, and he was wary about losing a turn to decline while the Elves were busy scoring away. Still, he probably should have done it in order to at least shake up things a bit and try to change the course of the game. As it turned out, the Hill Elves took the Old Warrior to a solid victory, earning 95 coins (might have made it to 100 if it wasn't for all the ransom paid for the Elvish leader) while the Dragonmaster Orcs ended with 73.

Heh. I'm a loser

Finished off the year with a quick 2-player game of Small World against the Young General -- and he schooled the Old Warrior. He played a very aggressive pick-on-dad's-guys game for the most part -- and it didn't hurt that he got them Ghouls, too.

Final score: Young general 66 -- Old Warrior 53.

Yeah, I'm al oser. But I'm also a Red Sox fan, if there's anything a Red Sox fan knows, it's that "there's always next year!"

A Wargamer's review of Small World

Some special tokens: Dragon, Hero, Halfling Holes-in-the-Ground.

Small World is the wildly popular fantasy conquest game designed by Philippe Keyaerts and published by Days of Wonder.

There's quite a bit of divergence of opinion on whether Small World and similar conquest games such as Risk, History of the World, Britannia or Small World's predecessor Vinci ,are properly termed "wargames." They're certainly not "simulations" in any real sense of that term, but it's hard for me to see how any game whose theme involves conquering territory and exterminating the inhabitants isn't a wargame of some sort. In any case, these sort of games definitely come out of the wargame hobby and are often played by wargamers.

In Small World's case, the potentially grim theme is lightened up considerably by a number of aspects of the game. One is the fantasy setting itself, which, like a cartoon, removes some of the emotional impact that would otherwise accrue to the theme. Many of the "races" in the game are not human and some, like the skeletons and ghouls, are arguably not even alive. Also contributing to the light-hearted nature of the game are the various special powers, which include some that are rather non-violent (Diplomat, Merchant), amusing (Alchemist, Stout) or neutral (Hill, Flying) alongside the more brutal (Beserk, Pillaging). Finally, and probably most importantly, the brilliant illustration by Miguel Coimbra creates a light tone that permeates the entire game's presentation. It's one thing to have Commando Skeletons, Forest Elves, or Seafaring Amazons in a game, but Commando Skeletons wearing Cowboy hats, Forest Elves smelling flowers or Seafaring Amazons attired in little more than makeup and some strategically-placed leaves is another thing entirely.

Like all Days of Wonder products, the physical presentation of the game is first-rate and quite opulent compared to the typical wargame. There are two full-color, double-sided and lavish;y illustrated maps, all the various counters and chits are thick, colorful and durable. The rule sand play aids are printed on slick, high-quality paper and there are plenty to go around. All are packed snugly inside a box with an insert carefully designed to hold and organize all the components . Indeed, the tray holding the race tokens is a little too precisely engineered -- it can be hard to pull out the tokens you need.

Map detail from the 2-player map

Special notice is due of the maps. There are four provided, which one is used depends on the number of players -- 2, 3, 4 or 5. This makes the game very scalable within its range of players without changing the character of the game or using large swaths of unused map space on the table.

The game play is very straightforward. At the start of a player's turn, if he or she doesn't already have a race. they select a race and special power from among a column of race/special power combos. They can pick the top one in the column for free, or pay one gold coin each for every race they skip, placing the coin atop the skipped race. This allows players to exercise some strategy in the selection of the race while providing an incentive to eventually pick one of the less-favored combos because of the bonus in gold coins they accumulate.

Victory coins: Reverse; Obverse 10, 5, 3 and 1

This brings up an important point -- how to win. While the game seems to be about conquest, it's really about accumulating gold coins. Although called "Victory Coins," experienced wargamers will recognize these are just victory points in the form of money -- as there are no economic or trade aspects in the game. There are various ways to get Victory Coins, but the basic and fundamental method is by occupying territory at a base of 1 coin per space.

An Active Special Power/Race combo - Hill Amazons and token

The player collects the number of tokens granted by the special power/race combo and then conquers territories. For example, the Hill Amazons combo gives 6 tokens for the Amazons and 4 for the Hill special power, for a total of 10. The Amazons get four extra tokens for use when attacking, only, that can't be used to occupy territories . The Hill Special Power also gives a bonus of one Victory Coin for each Hill territory occupied. The basic combat mechanic is majority rules. So long as the attacking force outnumbers the defending tokens by 2, the attacker wins. Some combos enhance the attackers or reduce the winning margin but in every case the attacker needs at least one token to capture an area. The defenders count the number of defending tokens, which can include race tokens, mountain tokens or tokens for defensive positions such as forts, bivouacs or troll lairs. Often the active race will end up without enough tokens to win automatically and for their last conquest the attackers can roll a special die which adds 0, 1, 2 or 3 to the attackers notional strength. Three faces on the die are blank, and one each bear 1, 2 or 3 pips, so success is far from guaranteed.

After conquests the player score victory coins for the regions occupied and any special conditions they have met.

A Declined Race - Skeletons and token, Note that most special powers are lost when a race declines.

Instead of conquering territory a player can decline their race, which is one of the key mechanics of the game. On the turn they decline their race the player can do no actions and just collects victory points for the areas they already occupy. In every occupied area they flip one race token over to its "decline: side and remove any extras. The area will defend with just the one token from that point. But as long as the player's declined races are on the map, the player continues to score victory coins for the areas they occupied. Deciding when to decline a race is one of the major strategic decisions of the game. And this is another wargame-like aspect of the game, because there is a lot of strategy involved in the game. Which territories to conquer, who to take them from and when to decline your races are all vitally important.

Typically a player will go through at least two and probably three races over the course of a game. Timing them properly will often mean the difference between being competitive or not.

The game scales well from 2-5 players, but like many multiplayer games it really shines when you have at least four involved. There's enough strategy involved to keep players engrossed in the action, but not so much that players are deterred from table chatter. Turns move right along and the game box promise of finishing in 40-80 minutes will be kept.

Can it be recommended for wargamers? I think so, so long as your sole reason fo playing isn't recreating history or analyzing military events. Small World is, by no stretch of the imagination, a simulation. But is it a lot of fun. There's every indication it will be played for a long time to come. The ever-changing combos, the different maps and the inherent dynamics of multiplayer interactions will mean that there's a lot of replay value.

The game also can serve as a true gateway game with your non-wargaming friends and family. The box rates the game at 8 and over and so it's a good dad's game for cuiltivating budding gamers.

More ladies for Small World

Some have complained that females are a bit under represented in Small World, with just the Amazons so far. Well, there are five new races coming in two more expansions for Small World according to Boardgame News and three of the five are female-oriented (or at least illustrated) races.

The Priestesses certainly look promising ...

Tale of two game clubs

I had the chance to visit two different game clubs today and they were very different experiences, although each positive.

My first stop was the monthly central Connecticut meeting of the Connecticut Game Club in Middlefield.

This was definitely serious geek gamer territory. I got to play a game of Small World. Other games I witnessed in progress included Talisman, Carcassonne, Agricola and World at War. Any of these would have been well beyond the ken of the second group I visited, which was a gamer's Meetup Group called the Cardplayers Club. This was definitely not geek territory, and as matter of fact, we not only had gamers but the hostess had also invited folks from an entirely different Meetup Group, the Over 40 Meetup.

Things got off to a slow start because everyone really wanted to play in one game, but the group didn't have anything suitable. We started a game of poker, but enthusiasm wasn't high and few of the players were familiar with the rules. There really aren't that many game that can handle 8 people well, especially if those people are not really gamers.

Fortunately I remembered I had a copy of Fluxx in the car so I broke that out. The first game was a little rough. It can be a little confusing, but everyone was willing to make another go at it and by the second game people were starting to get the hang of it. We ended up playing it three times, so I think it was a success. Fluxx has its critics -- it is a bit random -- but it is well suited for a large group of casual gamers. It's really almost self-evident in play, turns go fast and the random element means that everybody has a decent shot at winning..

Small World session report

Got in a three-player game of Small World. We were all newbies.

There were lot of declines and inter-player conflict. so it was a wild game.

The final score was 108 for the guy who won who wasn't me, 105 for me and 90 for the guy who lost who wasn't me.

As there was only five points between the top two finishers, there were probably a lot of possible swing points, but given that none of us knew much about the game's flow it was amazingly close all around. Even the third place finisher, who rather felt beat-up most of the game, was only 18 points behind the leader, which is a little more than one good turn's worth of points.

Small World first impressions

I do have to say that my first impressions of the game are very positive. It seems very well thought out as far as player aids and other components and the balance between forces. Some commentary has criticized the dwarves as being too weak, but I think that not having a perfect balance between races is not a bad thing. Much of that criticism seems to be coming from a eurogame perspective, but as a wargamer I'm pretty used to units that simply aren't as good as others. For wargames that's simply something you cope with. That militia may be close to worthless, but that's what you have, so deal with it.

Nice little brush fire on BGG over sexed-up Amazons in the Small World game

Images like this one from the new Days of Wonder game Small World prompted some vigorous discussion on Boardgame Geek about how women warriors are depicted in fantasy wargames.

Of course, the men in fantasy games also tend to have, er, idealized bodies as well.

Of course real-life Amazons tended to show somewhat less skin, at least they did sometimes.

The Dahomey Amazons reportedly often went into battle dressed in similar fashion to this image, but by the time they fought the French they had proper uniforms.

Interestingly, there's an actual example of a Dahomey Amazon uniform on display at the Whitby Museum in England.

The Dahomey Amazons were defeated by the French in 1890 but were lauded by their opponents for their incredible courage. They were the elite of the Dahomey army, a king's bodyguard. Fighting a modern, well-equipped western army, they took very heavy losses and the unit, along with the rest of the army of Dahomey (which was mostly male) was basically destroyed, along with the kingdom.

Small World looks intriguing

The latest pseudo-wargame from Days of Wonder looks rather interesting.

Small World is apparently an updated version of Vinci, which I've never played, but is in turn described as being similar to History of the World, which I have played.

I like these sort of games, they are especially good if you can get a group going. Small World has a fantasy setting, compared to the historical setting of Vinci, which opens up the possibilities. This sort of thing isn't a simulation in any sense of the word, so I don't think much is lost by moving it to a fantasy world and there's a lot of potential gain.

I'm looking forward to this coming out and trying it.