Another BattleLore hero -- the Rogue

Fantasy Flight previews another hero, this time the Rogue.

http://new.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=641

This is shaping up to be a good expansion that adds more options that make the game different from Commands & Colors: Ancients and Memoir '44 and helping cement its fantasy wargame flavor.

One interesting thing is that it appears that Fantasy Flight is retaining the packaging format established by Days of Wonder. I have mixed feeling about it. While it protects the miniatures it does take up a lot of space, which becomes a consideration for expandable games. I wonder if FFG will come up with something like the campaign bag for BattleLore. It's already quite a chore to carry it around.

Ask Ouija: can Battleship win an Oscar?

At NPR they took note of the upcoming movies based on various Hasbro toys and games:

"The new blockbusters, meanwhile, feature bombastic special effects and involve partnerships with some of the biggest names in movies — including Michael Bay, Steven Spielberg, DreamWorks, Paramount and Universal. G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, which opens in August, will try to duplicate the success of the Transformers franchise by offering its own explosions and action.

The big-screen strategy is one that seems to be working: "It's pretty much as close to printing money as you're going to get in the toy business," said Cliff Annicelli, who runs the toy industry journal Playthings.

Annicelli says that by letting the movie companies take the financial risk of producing the films, Hasbro is playing it smart with the Transformers and G.I. Joe movies. Though the company misses out on the box office take, it gets to sell all those toys to a new generation of fans.

Up next: a string of movies based on some of the most famous names in Hasbro's toy chest, including the board games Monopoly, Ouija, Candy Land and Battleship."

Actually, Transformers and G.I. Joe are not hard to see as a source for movie ideas. As a toy series, each does have a notional back story and a continuing narrative. They are also self-evidently action oriented toys and seem an easy fit for action-oriented movies. Action movies have always served as an excellent source for action toys tie-in as well. On the other hand, how many toys came out of Shakespeare in Love, The English Patient or No Country For Old Men?

But Monopoly, Ouija, Candy Land and Battleship? While they have themes, none of these have a story, so it's hard to see how the screenwriters can do more than just borrow the name from the game. Even the movie version of Clue suffered somewhat from this problem, although even that game has a little more narrative to it and some identifiable characters. Still, while a valiant effort, the Clue movie was hardly a success.

Of the four listed, I think the Ouija board may be the easiest to write a screenplay for. For one thing, Ouija isn't really a game. It would be pretty easy to take a Jumanji sort of approach where the Ouija board is used as a springboard for some other sort of story.

Candyland also seems to have a low entry bar. It's not much of a game, so the screenwriters could use it to tell any sort of kid-friendly story they wanted without having to worry too much about being constrained by the game in any way.

On the other hand, Monopoly seems tough. Everybody knows the game, so the audience will have more expectations about what they're going to see and therefore more opportunities to be disappointed. The success of some recent adaptations such as the Lord of the Rings and some of the recent superhero movies such as Spider-Man and the Dark Knight may obscure the poor track record of such efforts. For every Batman Returns there's a dozen Daredevils.

And turning Battleship into a movie? That's going to be an interesting assignment for a screenwriter. At least Monopoly has Mr. Monopoly and some recognizable locations like Boardwalk and the Reading Railroad to anchor it.

It would actually make more sense to me to use the Axis & Allies brand as a movie tie-in, or Heroscape or maybe Godstorm Risk. While not quite as well-known as Battleship, there's a narrative to mine for story ideas.

Most of these movies are set to come out in the next few years so I guess we won't have too long to wait to see how they turn out.

WizKids site is down

While the good news is that there seems to be some movement on the licensing for Heroclix, the bad new is that WizKids has tired of maintaining its supporting Web presence for the game and it is down.

This is unfortunate because most of the fans sites associated with the game are also gone. For example, I had tracked my figure inventory with MyHeroClix.com's database. It was quite useful.

I think at this point that I'm just about done with collectible games of any sort.

I'll be maintaining my Axis & Allies Miniatures and A&A War at Sea so long as Hasbro continues them, but there's no way I can be persuaded to get into any new collectibles - ever. Aside from the aggravation of the collectible format, which I had more or less come to terms with, the fact of the matter is that a collectible game is too dependent on continuing company support.

I have literally dozens of boardgames from long-defunct manufacturers that I get plenty of playing enjoyment with. I can find opponents. I can haul them out anytime. Some games become more or less obsolete because of shortfalls in the game itself, but almost never solely because the game is out of print. I can easily get in a game of Up Front, for example. I can play old SPI games online at Hexwar.com.

But with collectible games it appears to be a truism that being discontinued is a death sentence, even if the game is pretty good. Perfect examples of this are Navia Dratp and Dreamblade, which were both pretty good games that still have fans but seem to be in terminal decline. I mostly got into HeroClix in the first place because there was a local group that gathered every Sunday for competitive play. I wasn't all that competitive, but I enjoyed playing. But since company support ended that group simply disappeared. No company support, no play.

Company support, on the other hand, is basically a bonus for regular boardgames. Sure, tournament support is nice, but it's hardly a requirement. There are games still being played competitively at the World Boardgame Championships that are no longer in print. And many that are in print don't get significant company support. Except for brand-new games that are getting support for marketing purposes, company support is not a mandatory element for continued play. Indeed, there are some notable games that have been published by a whole series of publishers over the years -- Acquire, Cosmic Encounter, Diplomacy for example -- without any detrimental effects on their popularity.

I'm done.

HeroClix stirs

A short blog post from WizKids last week says that the licensing issues are close to being worked out. http://wizkidsgames.blogspot.com/2009/06/news-from-topps-june-18-2009.html We shall see

Bosworth -- Intense fun

There's a lot of satisfaction to be found in playing a game that rewards long-term plans, clever combinations and deep strategy.

But sometimes you can have a lot of fun with a game that's none of those things -- like Bosworth.

Billed as the game "you already know how to play," Bosworth essentially throws chess armies onto a quarter-sized chess board for a close range knife fight of a game. each player starts with four pawns, which have slightly expanded movement over their true chess namesakes, and has another dozen pieces (the rest of a standard chess army) in reserve to be entered into play in the player's camp, a special four-square area on each board edge. These camps are playable spaces during the first part of the game, but when a player no longer has pieces available to enter in the camp the empty camp spaces become impassible.

I have the original, 1998 card-version, which uses John Kovalic illustrations, but the game can be played with standard chess pieces and there are variant themes shown on Boardgame Geek as well.

In the card-based version I have the player doesn't have complete control over which cards are available. Instead the player has a "hand" of four cards to enter on the camp as spaces become available and draws from the reserve pile to refill the hand to four each turn.

This week we got to play a four-player game for the first time, which is definitely the best way to play. While the game can be played 2-player or 3-player, the 4-player configuration is best. The 2-player game is a little too chess-like and in the 3-player version the middle player starts with a rather disadvantaged position, but with four players the game really comes into its own. Long-range planning is tough with three other people moving in-between every move opportunity you have.

So instead you have to play very opportunistically. It's a fast-moving game, so we used it to cap off a day of wargaming. It ended up being close, but Mike P. came out on top in game with yours truly, Dave and the Little General Who Will Soon Be 10.

Axis & Allies: Europe nailbiter session report

Played a 3-player Axis & Allies: Europe yesterday that was such a nail-biter at the end that everyone ended up standing up for the last couple of turns!

Although it's been out for 10 years, I only picked up a copy of this a few months ago, and then only because it was on half-off clearance at a local comic book store. I gather from BGG comments that experienced players have some beefs with the game, but nothing was wrong with it from what I could see -- well, except for some damn dice. You'll see why later.

A&A Europe, unlike most of the recent games bearing the Axis & Allies name, is a true Axis & Allies system game, not just a brand. Its mechanics, strategies and tactics are all familiar to Axis & Allies players. Indeed, some innovations in A&A:Europe, such as destroyers and artillery, have become standard parts of the game. The main difference from other versions of Axis & Allies is that this version focuses purely on the European War, with the player nations being Germany, Soviet Russia, the British Commonwealth and the USA. For a three-player game, such as what we played Thursday, the same player controls British and US forces, but they are still distinct countries, moving and fighting separately during their own player turns.

While the most experienced wargamer in our trio, having played since 1969, I never really played all that much A&A. I did play the old Nova version once, before Milton Bradley (later Hasbro) owned it, and I think I played it once or twice after that, but by the time it came out I was much more heavily into detailed hex-and-counter games such as World in Flames and A&A seemed too simple. Subsequently I find my tastes evolving and something along the lines of Axis & Allies is much more my cup of tea these days. Still, my only recent experience playing Axis & Allies was an Anniversary Edition game against Mike "Private" Powell.

Mike, in contrast, was an old A&A hand, having had a fairly regular group coming over his house to play the original edition game for a while, although he hadn't played much of the newer versions, aside from the previously mentioned game of AA50 and a game of the somewhat similar A&A: D-Day against me. It goes without saying that he won the A&A: D-Day and was ahead in the AA50 game when we had to call it for time.

He brought over his friend Dave, a fellow of more recent vintage than Mike or I, and therefore someone who'd had less opportunity to gather experience. Still, I gathered that Dave had put in a few A&A games and was therefore more experienced in the game than I was.

Based on the relative levels of experience I suggested I play the western allies, while Mike and Dave split up the more critical countries. Mike ended up taking Russia, while Dave was the Germans.

The game more or less followed the course I expected, with Germany embarking single-mindedly on taking out Russia while Russia held on. The main variation was that Germany abandoned the U-Boat war, preferring to use his subs to take out the Allies navies so that he could use all his air on the Russian front. He also barely contested North Africa, so the British were able to clear that area.

My inexperience with the game may very well have cost the Allied side because I suspect my builds could have been more efficient. I ended up with some land troops in both the US and England that never got into the fight, indicating to me that a few IPCs were misallocated.

Despite that, the game came down to a hair-raising finish, with both Moscow AND Germany coming under serious attack around the same time. Unfortunately the dice took a decidedly unfriendly turn for the Allies at this precise moment. Mike noted that the most critical round in any A&A battle is the first one, as a bad set of rolls has a snowballing effect in later rounds. Units killed in Round 1 aren't inflicting damage later. The Soviet defense of Moscow should have been adequate to hold out, but a great first round of attacks by the Germans gutted the Soviet defense, (I think there was just 1 miss) and the Germans took Moscow.

Hope was not lost, however, as the German emphasis on Russia had left its homeland defense at a risky level, with just two tanks and about eight or nine infantry. The Allied plan was for a one-two punch by the Allies with consecutive amphibious invasions backed heavily by air support. The idea was that the British would be expendable, so long as they killed at least 4 or 5 German defenders, clearing the way for an even bigger US invasion later that turn.

Unfortunately the dice again displayed a pro-Axis bias at the worst possible time. Although Axis anti-aircraft fire had been notably ineffective over several turns of strategic bombing raids prior to the invasion, when the three British Lancasters appeared overhead to support the invasion two of them were shot down! As they were expected to get at least two rounds of firing at the Germans and therefore probably would have killed 4 Germans alone (with any hits by the troops or destroyers a bonus, this was a heavy blow indeed. Of course the follow-on invasion only killed a couple of Germans and there simply wasn't any way that the US forces could trade blows with the number Germans left.

Our post-mortem analysis suggested that the Western Allies were a turn or two too late. I agree. While risky, Dave's laser-like focus on Russia paid off in the end.

Fiddled with Waterloo a bit today

Finally had the time needed to try a couple of test turns in Waterloo.

it's an intriguing design, and while completely different from Bowen Simmons' Bonaparte at Marengo or Napoleon's Triumph , Martin Wallace's Waterloo is similarly completely divorced from the hex-and-counter wargame tradition.

While traditional hex-and-counter wargames have their flaws and limitations, they do have the considerable advantage of familiarity. After some 40 years of playing them it's pretty easy for me to sit down with an unfamiliar h&c wargame and get up to speed relatively quickly. Are there zones of control? Are they locking or semi-rigid? Is the CRT odds based or differential, etc.

Waterloo is different enough from all that to have required a dedicated stretch of time to set it up and try to step through a couple of turns without interruption. So today I ran through the set up and first two turns solitaire.

What's immediately apparent is that, notwithstanding Mr. Wallace's protestations and the cute little meeple soldiers, Waterloo is definitely an intricate wargame, not a euro. While flavored with some euro-style mechanics (such as casualty cubes instead of loss point markers) the game is much heavier than most euro fare and is probably a heavier wargame than Borg's Commands & Colors system.

There's a lot going on, and while I think experienced players will probably hit pretty close to the 3-hour playing time mark promised by the box art, I wouldn't be surprised to see early games take twice that long to play. A combined arms assault into a heavily defended area can easily be a very intricate affair, with defending cannon fire, a multi-step cavalry melee, a cavalry vs. infantry duel, a two-step contest between infantry and finally an overrunning of the guns!

Because it's a wholly new system, it's not immediately obvious what to do and what the pacing will be, but my 2-turn play through revealed that it's certainly not a game that will reward just tossing troops at the enemy and seeing what will stick. Similarly to Simmons' games, although getting there in an entirely different way, it's best to think of battles as multi-round affairs that will require staging, reinforcements, counter attacks and combined arms.

It's definitely NOT a filler game, but must be the main course for an evening's gaming.

Heroes coming to BattleLore

After a long hiatus, it appears we're going to start seeing some action on the BattleLore front. A Heroes expansion is coming.

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=624

The first one highlighted is a cleric. This promises to enhance the fantasy theme of BattleLore and help differentiate itself from the other Command & Colors games. I think it's interesting how some fairly subtle differences in the rules can create games with considerably different flavors.

Memoir'44, C&C:Ancients, BattleLore and Battle Cry all play very differently, despite sharing a fairly simple game system.

Error in Waterloo's rules, or just awkward wording?

I'm not sure how often it will come up, but there is a possible contradiction between the rulebook and the player aid on when the initiative changes at 7 p.m., or perhaps just unclear wording

According to the rulebook, the French player keeps the initiative "If at the start of the 7 p.m. turn the French holds all three strongpoints."

The player aid states "The Allied player will take the the initiative if the French player does not control one of the three strongpoints."

I think it's trying to say the same thing, which is that the French must hold all three strongpoints in order to keep the initiative. That would be the historically correct interpretation. Hougomont never fell, but the French did occupy the other two.

But I could see a French rules lawyer arguing that he does control one strongpoint and therefore keeps the initiative. I think it's a tortured reading, but I've run into worse over the years.

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.

Mainstreaming games in the media

Interesting gaming reference in a mainstream magazine this month. An article in Armed Forces Journal uses the example of Leeroy Jenkins, a legendary character from a YouTube about an incident in World of Warcraft" video game that ended up going viral. It appears that a character called Leeroy Jenkins charged in recklessly, disrupting the carefully laid plans of a party and resulting in that party getting wiped out.

The character became so famous he got his own card in the collectible card edition of World of Warcraft, shown above.

The whole incident in the hook for a story about reforming the way the U.S. military approaches the adviser mission in places such as Iraq and Afghanistan. Capt. Robert M. Chamberlain's point is that the U.S. approach to advisor missions has been too U.S.-centric and not focused on local needs and realities. The go-it-alone and can-do attitudes of US troops mean they're not being as effective advising local units as they need to be. Chamberlain proposes reforms to address this.

Still, it's interesting that Chamberlain selected a popular game venue to capture his readers' attention. It suggest that for his peers and immediate supervisors, this kind of example would resonate. Juts as in an earlier era a writer might have used a poker or chess analogy to make a point, it now seems that popular games like World of Warcraft are embedded enough in the culture to be for a similar role.

Fudge factors

Gen. Pope stood at the treeline outside Groveton, examining the Rebel line with his spyglass. If he could destroy the Secessionist Brigade opposing him, believed to be Pickett's, he could break through the enemy front. Unfortunately, despite having five brigades immediately at hand, under the commands of Meade, Butterfield, Robinson, Milroy and Hatch, experience told him there was a good chance that a full-fledged assault would merely push the enemy back, or succeed with high losses. Pope was sore tempted to send in just three brigades. The weaker attack was still guaranteed to succeed, but likely at reduced cost.

Rebel brigade is 4 combat factors. It can only be attacked from three contiguous hexes by five federal brigades totalling 21 factors for a 5-1. 33% chance of a defender retreat, 33% chance of an exchange and a 33% chance of a defender eliminated. Using just three brigades (12 vs. 4, or 3-1) provides just a 1/6 chance each of a DE or EX, while a 2/3 chance of a DR.

"Bad news, sir," said a nearby aide, a young major. "Another rebel brigade has come up in support!"

Pope could see that was true. A slightly smaller Rebel brigade was taking a position beside the first.

"Not at all!" exclaimed Pope, snapping his telescope shut. "Pickett is doomed, now. Quick. Send word to Hatch to swing around from the right flank and join Meade in attacking this new arrival. Once they've driven them back, tell Hatch to be sure to follow. Then order the rest to hit Pickett"

"But sir," the major protested. "We have Meade and Robinson already in position to attack the newly arrived brigade! Shouldn't we attack now?'

"No, no," Pope explained. "Hatch will bring an extra factor and give us exactly enough for a 3-1!"

Hatch's 5 combat factor brigade moves to stack with Meade's 4-factor brigade adjacent to the 3-factor Rebel Seddon's Brigade. Butterfield, Milroy and Robinson, total of 12 factors, stack in the remaining two hexes to attack Pickett. Hatch and Meade combine for a 3-1 against Seddon, which is guaranteed to clear the hex. Even and EX allows Hatch to advance, cutting off Pickett's retreat, meaning that the subsequent 3-1 against Pickett is guaranteed to eliminate Pickett.

The above is a commonplace scenario in traditional hex-and-counter wargames, in this case the Second Bull Run scenario from the Blue & Gray quad.

For more than 40 years I've grudgingly tolerated this aspect of the games, while never really being a fan of it, ever since discovering it in the old Avalon Hill game Stalingrad. I understand that all wargames result in some compromises for the sake of playability, but factor-counting has always grated a bit. Perhaps it's because I never really developed a knack for it, despite the fact that it's really required for good play. But I think it's largely because it's a distraction from the real art of generalship in a game. The above example illustrates the absurd nature of factor-counting. There's no equivalent in real battlefield command of counting out combat (or movement) factors in order to gain a precise advantage.

I think that's one reason why games like Memoir '44 or Battle Cry don't bother me. To my mind, a game that reduces generalship to commands like move a couple of units on the Left or fire the guns in the center seems just as authentic as a game that purports to be realistic by accounting for the slight strength differential between Hatch's brigade and Meade's.

Most infantry brigades in the Blue & Gray quads are very similar in strength, and this is no accident. Both armies generally tried to keep brigades around the same strength in order to simplify command and control. Each brigade was supposed to be able to do about a brigade's worth of work on the battlefield. I don't think you'll find many instances in the Official Records when the commanding general sent Brigade "A" on a mission because it had one more regiment than Brigade "B." That sort of detail is invisible at the battlefield command level. The Battle Cry approach where all the units are the same functional strength is really more valid than it might appear at first glance.

This opinion is likely why I've generally been pretty open to non-traditional approaches to wargames such as Up Front, Columbia's block games, Bowen Simmons' recent designs and area/point-to-point games such as A House Divided or Storm Over Arnhem. There are many great hex-and-counter wargames, but in many cases they do tend to focus the gamer's attention on minute details at the expense of larger truths.

Waterloo out of the box impressions

Game arrived today and I couldn't resist opening the box right away.

After looking it over most of the afternoon I have to say I am intrigued. It appears to be a pretty original approach to a wargame, reminding me in many ways of games such as Napoleon's Triumph, Friedrich or Hammer of the Scots. The components are fine-looking, in a euro sort of way (I don't mind the meeple troops, but they've gotten a very mixed reception among wargamers, it seems).

Indeed, BGG comments also seem to indicate that eurogamers also don't know quite what to make of it.

First off, despite physical appearances, and Martin Wallace's disclaimer that it's not an attempt at "simulation," let there be no mistake -- this is a wargame. It's probably even more firmly in the wargame camp than Borg's Commands & Colors system. And I think Wallace may be selling his design a little short. While he didn't do an SPI-style system analysis. detailed OB study or terrain walk, Waterloo is not some simplistic or stylistic war-themed game either.

Still, it may be too euro for most hex-and-counter lovers and too wargamey for Wallace's usual fans. I'm looking forward to trying it out.

My only component reservation on first glance is that the dark blue of the French Imperial Guard is hard to pick out from the black color of Prussian regulars under some light conditions. This may not turn out to be a problem in actual play, but it would have been better to have a little more separation in shade, I think.

Clash for a Continent, Ticonderoga session report

Mark and I both went into this scenario highly dubious about the British army's chances. I got the British for the first go-around,

While the British host grossly outnumbered the French, half of it was American militia, which experience had already shown us were as likely as not more trouble than they were worth. I know I had no intention of letting many of them anywhere within the range of the French.

The remaining British were high quality 4-factor line, a couple of 4-factor elites and a 3-factor light infantry and led by two officers, so they had an edge over the French, who were all 3-factor infantry, except for a couple of generals. But the French manned a line of entrenchments with a 2-hex wide field of fire, so it looked like t would be tough for the British to avoid losing six VP worth of units before they killed a like number of French, and the three VP counters deep inside the French position looked quite out of reach.

My plan as the British was to extend my left through the woods facing the French right, mostly to pin those French in position. Then I would attack the opposite end of the French line, next to the waterway, hoping to induce a gap in the French center which would then be assaulted by my third wave, the two elite units and a helper.

In the actual event the waterway flank assault, despite taking some grievous losses from French volleys, managed to get a full-strength British line unit next to the entrenchments. With a hurrah they scaled the parapet and gained entry. The immediate French counterattack failed and I rushed some more nearby British units into the breach, including one of the elites. The French were forced to fall back to the central hill. After a slight detour to collect the victory point inside the fort hex, the British successfully stormed the hill. Between the VP markers on the hill and French casualties they made their six points.

We were a little surprised by the result and concluded that the scenario was more competitive than it first appeared. It does leave me pondering what the French defensive policy ought to be, because it appears that the entrenchment line isn't quite the obstacle I thought it was, based on previous battles. One key difference in this particular fight is that the French have no artillery at all, whereas in previous scenarios the forts always had a cannon unit which was usually devastating to some attackers. In this scenario on the other hand, it's all up to the muskets.

While a Clash for a Continent scenario and played under that game's rules, we used the pieces from Hold the Line. this worked so well I'm considering freeing up some shelf space by eBaying my copy of Clash.

Axis & Allies Anniversary Edition reprint

Now there's word on the AH boards that there may be a reprint of A&A 50 after all.

http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=1204736

TOI's Chain of Command session

Mark and I continued our mini-TOI marathon with a match of Chain of Command, the second "bonus" scenario from the Tide of Iron Designer's Series Vol. 1.

Like its twin, Breaking the Line, Chain of Command turned to to be a well-balanced, taut scenario that could go either way, although this time I happened to win both times.

An American infantry force with three half tracks is attempting to fight its way through a smaller German force and off the board, but faces a choke point at a bridge and limited time. Adding to the time pressure, the Germans have a reinforcement deck and can look forward to getting some help right at the end of the scenario, when it will do the most good.

I had thought we might play this game first, so I had a German set-up already in place. Perhaps unduly influenced by my set up, Mark left what may have been its most controversial aspect in place, two elite-heavy anti-tank squads ready to occupy the command-point providing building on the German left. He did adjust some other aspects of the setup, though, but to his detriment. He moved up one machine gun squad to a position that proved exposed and only covered the bridge with one squad, which meant the Germans had to choose between getting a victory point for occupying the bridge and occupying a second command point source.

Given the concentration of officer-led, anti-tank equipped elite guys on the German left I decided it would be prudent to go the other way. I pushed through a few squads into the woods to provide interdicting fire to keep the elites in place. With some fortunate shooting that detachment also chased away the exposed machine gun squad. Meanwhile the half tracks and a couple of squads attacked along the narrow avenue of approach leading to the German right, eliminating the other machine gun squad,

The half tracks and squads continued their sweep, closing on the bridge. A heartbreakingly successful suppressive fire attack from the Germans routed an elite squad of Americans, but generally the firefights tended to favor the US side due to the concentrated fire of the half tracks.

The US troops based in the woods were able to hinder the attempts by the elites to react to the threat and eventually the US troops overwhelmed the bridge garrison and its erstwhile saviors. A couple of half tracks took light damage but two half tracks were able to exit for four VPs, which was enough to guarantee a win as the Germans had also lost the bridge.

Switching sides, I decided that my original notion of making a stand at the exposed command-point generating building was a poor idea and this time I committed just one squad of regular troops to make a stab at grabbing the site for a few quick command points, with little expectation of staying long. As it turned out they never made it, being pinned by the US mortar early and often and eventually succumbing to repeated attacks.

Instead I concentrated on the low-hanging fruit and occupied the bridge and the adjacent command site, as well as the other command site with the anti-tank elites and friends. The Germans right was covered by both machine guns.

The US attack seemed to develop a little too slowly, partly because Mark's firers missed a few times around turn 2, which meant that the bridge position didn't really come under heavy attack until around turn 4. A long-range anti-tank attack on a half-track, while missing, made the US wary of closing too quickly. By the time the US was seriously threatening the bridge three squads of Germans reinforcements had appeared and it became evident the US wouldn't have sufficient movement available to exit any of the half tracks before the end of the game, so the 4 VP already earned by the Germans ensured victory.

Overall an interesting contest. I think the US should use the half tracks primarily as fire support and only secondarily as a source of VPs. If just one manages to exit the US can win, because exiting implies gaining control of the bridge by turn 4 or 5 and getting 2 or 3 VPs for that.

Pawndering green

It's a trifling gesture, but I'm switching this humble blog to a green theme for a bit to express support to the Iranian people.

Couldn't catch a break

The Tide of Iron Designer's book includes a couple of bonus scenarios that were previously unpublished "demo" scenarios used during the prepublication marketing. They were designed to be simultaneously playable using one base set of the game, which made them attractive choices when I invited the redoubtable Mark K. over for a game day because it allowed me to have two games all set up before he arrived.

We played "Breaking the Line" first, in which a large American force attempts to seize a defended point atop a fortified hill from a smaller German force. Neither side receives any reinforcements and there are no vehicles involved.

I played the Americans first. My initial plan was to use Division 2 as a base of fire to cover Division 1 moving onto the flank. Division 1 would then become the base of fire and cover the final assault by Division 2.

This neat plan broke down under fire and my advance degenerated into a series of "Indian rushes" instead. I was able to get several squads into position for the final rush onto the objective, but all were cut down before they could launch actual assaults.

In retrospect I think I overindulged in "suppressive" attacks. While useful in covering maneuvering, it left too many live enemies for the end game. Failed or moderately successful suppression leaves most of the enemy in place. In contrast, Mark's Germans generally used "normal" (or as we took to calling them, "killing" ) attacks, so the American forces were taking heavy casualties -- helped by some good die rolls. Particularly annoying was a German double-mortar squad, which did a lot of damage until I got a lucky shot at it which killed off one crew. The survivors pulled back into deep cover. They played a lesser role after that, but they'd already done a lot of damage. Even "suppressive fire" can be deadly when there's 8 dice of it.

Still, despite everything, I felt that I had a shot at winning and it went to the last turn with the issue still in doubt, although a betting man would have probably laid in odds against me by turn 4 of the 6.

The switch game wasn't as close. Mark again concentrated on normal attacks. I made a stab on the right flank at threatening to deny him the 3 command points he'd normally get for occupying the "3" marker but a suppressive fire that could have pinned his unit tasked with capturing that key point missed. The two German squads on that side slowed his advance a bit, but ultimately vainly, as his barrage of fire gunned down all the hill's defenders despite their entrenchments. With the hill empty of defenders and none of the surviving Germans able to prevent it, Mark scooted a squad up onto the hill using the "Critical Objective" card (and its 2 movement point bonus) on Turn 5, for a clear and decisive win.

As we were both still getting used to the game (he'd only played it solitaire, and I had played it a couple of times) it took a long time to play, especially the first game, but as the evening wore on we sped up a lot. Mark was definitely the TOI Master after two games, but I was about to have my revenge in our next set "Chain of Command," which I'll report on tomorrow.

Got GD'42 today

I was there at the beginning.

20 years ago I bought Bloody 110, the first game in the second series of games by The Gamers, which was predicated on presenting players with series based on standardized rules so they could spend time playing and not wading through rule books. They were not completely successful, as most games from The Gamers were pretty heavy. And the Tactical Combat Series, TCS, was no exception. Make no mistake about it, TCS is a full-blown grognard hex-and-counter wargame system, which puts authenticity first. It luxuriates in charts, die roll modifiers and intricate procedures.

What it doesn't so, however, is bury itself in abstractions. While detailed and intricate, the game system is surprisingly intuitive. At 125 yards per hex, 20 minutes per turn and with platoon-scale troop units and individual tanks it's obviously very tactical. But at its heart it's not a game about lieutenants and captains, but a game about majors and colonels. Although games in the series cover everything from actions by company-sized commands (Semper Fi) to corps-sized commands (Black Wednesday), it's at the regimental level that most action takes place, with battalion as the main maneuver element.

It's also been a remarkable stable set of rules Bloody 110, which came out in 1989 was follwed a year later by Objective Schmidt and Omaha and a Second Edition of the rules, which simplified some of the more excruciating procedures, including the artillery fire system. I'm an artilleryman, and I still found the round-by-round tracking of fire missions in the first edition tedious. Optional "Miller Tables" started a process that resulted in much more sensible artillery rules later on. In 1993 a third edition of the rules, styled 3.0, appeared in Matanikau and GD'40 which further simplified things.

GD' 40 also inaugurated an interesting experiment, where the game system would attempt to follow one famous unit, the German army's GrossDeutchland, throughout the war with a game from each year it fought.

Finally, in 1994, the rules stabilized with version 3.1, which introduced battalion-level morale, and the final version of the artillery rules. Oddly, this 1994 game, Hunters From the Sky, which included the 3.1 version of the rules, didn't use most of that rule book because that game, uniquely in the series, didn't use the command rules. Now, while it's certainly possible not to use the command rules, it seems rather pointless to. They really form the heart of the game system.

Relying on written plans, inspired by actual military maneuver graphics and procedures, the command system is an important part of the system's authenticity. Older tactical combat games such as PanzerBlitz suffered from the problem of too much happening. Even Squad Leader and the later ASL suffer from this flaw. The typical game of PanzerBlitz or ASL depicts an hour or so of fighting and moving, but at far too accelerated a rate. Real battles can last hours, due to fear, confusion, coordination, etc. and all the other friction of war. TCS battles, in contrast, unfold at a much more realistic pace.

With the 3.1 rules the system reached a stable state that would last for 15 years, over nine more games and even through the sale of The Gamers to Multiman Publishing in 2000.

An important part of the system's longevity was system designer and guru Dean Essig's insistence that no game ever be made obsolete by later editions. All updated rules were backwards compatible. This no doubt constrained design choices somewhat, but it was a real reward for those who stuck with the system. So often early adopters of game systems end up finding their early support "rewarded" by having their initial games being made obsolete by newer versions.

This policy, however, apparently helped insure that the 4.0 rules were a long time coming. TCS was always an infantry- and artillery-centric system, which is no surprise, given that Essig was formerly an infantry officer who commanded a mortar platoon before a tragic training accident caused his military career to end. It worked best for infantry-dominated fights, but had some problems in games that included a large amount of armor on both sides. While some other changes were made in 4.0, it was the perceived need to fix the armor interaction that drove the development of 4.0. But the rules also had to remain compatible with all earlier versions, which meant no new markers or new values for counters.

How successful 4.0 is in this regard, I can't say yet, but given that it's been playtested for about a decade I think the chances are good.

GD '42 introduces a new graphic style for both counters and map, compared to all earlier versions. As it's only the third new TCS game since MMP took the line over it's a welcome addition and provides hope that the system will continue. It's possible the pace of TCS releases may pick up now that 4.0 is out, because I believe several other TCS titles that feature armored fights were on hold until the problem was solved. The game before GD '42 was Bloody Ridge in 2005, which didn't have any armor.

I'm hoping we nee more TCS soon. I've been anticipating Arracourt for a long time.

Magic: The Gathering overhaul

So the new core set of Magic, Magic 2010 will also introduce some major changes in the game, according to Wizards of the Coast.

http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/feature/42a

The official line is that these changes are meant to simplify the game and get rid of a lot of counter intuitive aspects of the current game so that more casual players can be playing correctly.

As a casual player, my first impression of the changes is positive. One of the things that makes Magic hard to stay with is a sense that you can't really keep up with all the arcane rules if you don't play all the time. I don't think these changes come anywhere near limiting the advantage serious players will have over casual players. The serious player will still, after all, have many more cards in his/her collection. The serious player will have a much better understanding of the possible card interactions and the deeper implications of certain plays. But some of the truly odd-seeming manipulative stuff that used obscure timing effects and the like that would really befuddle and turn off a casual player are gone.

Among the significant changes is an end to mana burn. In my experience this was one of the more abused rules. I remember falling victim to a degenerate deck that used a combo to force the target, me, into a mana burn death. Now unused mana simply disappears, which returns the battle to the battlefield where it belongs.

Oh yeah, the "battlefield.' This is the new term for "in play" It's much clearer and more in keeping with the theme as well. Other term changes that better reflect the theme while also being more clean include "exile" for cards removed from play and "cast" (which used to be the word) for putting into play.

It will interesting to see the reaction among the serious players to these changes. I would expect a certain hue and cry, simply because many people hate change, period.