10 worst games of all time

Reader Rose King lists 10 real howlers here. It's hard to argue that any of them are good games, that's for sure. I remember Dr. Ruth's Game of Good Sex -- published by a wargame company, no less! Really odd.

Time flies!

I haven't had a chance to do much blogging these past couple of weeks, but it's not because I haven't had some game-related news to report.

I just took over the New London County Board Games meetup up after the original organizer had to step down.

You can check it out here

I've schedule a meetup for next week for Settlers of Catan and on Oct. 22 we will be playing Axis & Allies 1940 Global.

Speaking of Axis & Allies, we're just a week away from getting a couple of cases of the new Surface Action set. more on that later.

Some other notable recent acquisitions include Test of Fire and the new edition of Crusader Rex.

Looks like a second Campaign Book is on the way for Memoir '44!

Days of Wonder's site has a link to order a new campaign book. It says there are 11 different campaigns involved, which is similar tot he number that were in the first campaign book. There's no mention of any "Grand Campaign" rules however and the breadth of campaigns mentioned int he write-up would seem to preclude the kind of links seen in the first book.

This looks like a nice product and it's definitely on my list.

Polarizing

Test of Fire -- action around Henry House Hill

It's not just politics that seem to be becoming more polarized -- my tastes in games are going in two different directions as well.

As I get older I find I'm appreciating games on the far ends of the realism/playability spectrum and losing interest in the much that's in the middle.

On the one hand, I'm really enjoying games such as Test of Fire. It is, by no stretch, a simulation. But it does manage to capture the overall flavor of the Battle of First Bull Run with an elegantly spare set of rules -- practically a Japanese rock garden as far as wargame rules go -- that's also a lot of fun and extremely quick to play (45 minutes to an hour).

And on the other hand, when I really want to understand the "what-ifs" of History I find myself drawn to games such as Command at Sea or Persian Incursion.

The problem is that medium complexity wargames no longer hit a "sweet spot" for me. They're generally too lengthy and work-intensive and yet I've lost faith that the work leads to a significantly more accurate simulation. Some of the newer designs I've come across sometimes seem to do things differently simply for the sake of doing things differently. And some design abstractions seem to be inadequately justified to me. I'm often left wondering why things are done a certain way and the designer doesn't enlighten. There are exceptions, of course, but that's the trend I'm seeing. Now there's no question that a game like Harpoon 4 is a lot of work, but at the end of the day you see what the work is for and its explicit nature makes it easy for you to modify as you see fit. As soon as the designer starts abstracting things, a certain opaqueness descends on the design. Even if you tiker with it, you can't be sure you're having the desired effect on realism. If you add an artillery unit that's missing from the OB are you really making the game more realistic. Maybe the designer already factored it into the strength of another unit -- or maybe you're over-estimating the effect of the unit and the designer was justified in leaving it out.

On the other end, a game like Test of Fire isn't about that sort of thing anyway. It's about providing an entertaining game narrative that captures the overall flavor of the battle without worrying overmuch about any details. And it only takes an hour.

This is too cool

About 50 or so re-enactors gathered to commemorate the 2,500th anniversary of the Battle of Marathon this week.

2011 is, of course the actual 2,500th year since the battle of 490 BC because there's no "Year Zero" in the calendar system we use.

I didn't have the ability to travel to Greece this year, but I did commemorate the anniversary a few weeks ago with an Epic game of Marathon using Commands & Colors -- which the Greeks won, although perhaps not quite so decisively has they did historically.

Test of Fire -- testing, testing

It's ideal when you can open a box with a game that came in the mail and less than 24 hours later see it hit the table, but that happy circumstance came about with Mayfair's new Test of Fire.

Originally this was supposed to some out in time for the 150th anniversary of the battle, but, as such things tend to do in the wargame hobby, the release date slipped a bit and ity just arrived in September. Well, at least it's still the 150th anniversary year.

Test of Fire is an introductory historical wargame by noted euro game designer Martin Wallace. While not his first historical wargame, Wallace is definitely much better known as a euro designer and he's been careful to state that his wargames are not simulations in any way. I think he's being a little too humble, though, because no introductory warggame is going to manage to be much of a simulation and Wallace's games so far have shown a reasonable level of historical fidelity considering their scope. I think they compare very favorably to more traditional wargames. About the only thing Wallace designs definitely avoid it's being tied down to any particular unit or time scale. While units are differentiated by type, as appropriate, they're not labeled in any way. So, while we know that the Red Elite Federal unit in Gdettysburg is the "Iron Brigade," the figure doesn't say that.

Likewise in Test of Fire we don't see any unit identifications. The vast bulk of both armies is formed of infantry units, which seem to represent about 1,000 troops. Each army has two artillery units, which seem to represent nothing more than an aggregatuon of firepower in a sectoir. Both armies historically divided their artillery units up into a number of separate batteries. Each army has a commanding general (or, optionally, two commanding generals for the CSA). The presence of Stuart's cavalry is represented by a card ad the federal horsemen present are ignored altogether.

The mounted mapbaord is divided into areas representing the battlefield at Bull Run. Some area boundaries are marked with a number that shows how many units can be moved acroiss the boundary at once, with the default for unmarked ares being 2. Roads allow 3 units, woods just one. Along the river the values range from 0 to 2.

In addition to their on-board troops, each side has access to its own deck of cards which provide various bonuses and special events.

Game play is straightforward. Each player in his turn rolls a number of D6 (4 for the Union, 3 for the CSA) with the die results controlling which actions the player can take. For every 1 rolled the player can draw a card. For every 2 or 3 rolled an artillery unit can fire at an adjacent area with a 5 or 6 being a "hit." A subsequent roll determines the effect, with a 6 causing damage to a unit while a 1-5 forces a unit to retreat. For every 4 or 5 rolled a player can move one group of units from one area to an adjacent area, subject to the boundary limits. Finally, a 6 allows a player a choice between firing an artillery unit with a general, condcuting a move with units in the same are as a general or drawing a card.

Combat is also very simple and straightforward. Units use move actions to enter an enemy occupied area. As the timing of actions is under player control, more than one move action can be taken before a battle is fought. Infantry units roll 2 dice per unit involved, up to a maximum of 6 dice worth, with the defender firing first. Eacgh 5 or 6 is a hit (4-6 if defending a hill) with a subsequent roll resolving the hit effect: 1-3 is a retreat, 4-6 is damage. Damage flips an infanrty unit or destorys an alaready flipped unit. Artillery and leaders don't take direct part in the combat and have to retreat if left alone in the space with an enemy infantry unit. The attackers has one round of combat to clear the defenders from the space, otherwise the attacking units retreat.

Victory is assessed several possible ways. Most basically, if a side captures the enemy home base (Centerville or Manassas) then it wins, but barring very reckless play this shouldn't happen. When the cards run out, the next time a card would ahve to be drawn then the game ends on the completion of the Confederate turn. If the federals have two of the three starred areas on the Rebel side of Bull Run, then they win, otherwise the Confederates prevail. Finally, and perhaps most controversially, each side has a number of "Rout" cards they can play. each entitles the player to roll 2D6 and if the total is equal two or less than the number of enemy infantry units lost then that side wins. This obviously makes the game potentially very dicey, with a sudden death victory possible as soon as 2 enemy units are lost.

About the most that can be said for this is that's basically what happened historically, and a similar idea is seen in the Decision Games Blue & Gray First Bull Run quad. The game moves very fast, so there will generally be time to pick up and start again if a quick end happens.

The basic situation is familiar, the federal army is heavily weighted to its right flank as it prepares to march around the flank of the rebel army, which is, in turn, strongest on its own right.

Our first game took a bit over an hour, which seems good for a virgin out-of-the-box play. I can see experienced payers cooking through the game in the advertised 45 minutes easy.

Like all of Wallace's wargames, Test of Fire manages to skin the cat in a very different way from the traditional hex-and-counter game while being at least as historical and fun. The situation's historical constraints make this less wide-open than most euros, of course, but players do seem to have several viable approaches besides the strict historical plans.

The MSRP is under $30 so overall I'd rate this as a good value.

Opening Salvos preview -- 8 ships revealed!!

USS Montana

Rich Baker's blog revealed 8 sip images with data cards that will likely be the 8 ships in his Opening Salvos for Set VI -- and an interesting bunch it is, too.

The big boys are the USS Montana, weighing in at 80 points with absolutely monstrous stats and a new version of the Yamato.

For cruisers we have the Sheffield from the Bismarck hunt and an Italian fast light cruiser.

For carriers we have the Japanese Taiho, which was expected and the British Eagle, which was not.

And for support units there's a common LST and a German minesweeper! All good stuff.

Brazil in World War II

It's not well-known, but Brazilian troops saw ground combat in Europe in World War II. As a matter of fact, the Italian campaign was the first in history to include troops from every inhabited continent -- with North American, South American, African, Asian and ANZAC troops as well as Europeans taking part.

Back in the 1980s my first contribution to Strategy & Tactics magaizne was an article about "The Other BEF," referring to the Brazilian Expeditionary Force that fought in Italy. Now, it wasn't exactly a secret to wargamers that Brazil fought in Italy -- there's a counter for the Brazilian Division in Anzio -- but I think my article was the first one in a wargaming publication to go into any detail about it.

My main source was the account of the division's operation written by its commander, a copy of which was in the library of the Field Artillery School at Fort Sill where I was student at the time. I supplemented the account with some American sources as well, especially the IV Corps report. These were what I had available at the time, which was, naturally, less than satisfying.

So I was intrigued when I saw that Osprey was publishing a book on the topic by Brazilian authors which could take advantage of Brazilian accounts. I was relieved to find that my account was correct in general, although I naturally didn't have much of the unit-level detail and battle accounts that the Osprey book features.

The Brazilian's biggest contribution to the war effort was making it's geographical position available to the Allies for air ferry missions to Africa and anti-submarine work against U-boats. It took a lot of time to ready the Brazilian Division for ground combat given the lack of domestic military equipment and experience. Still, the Brazilains arrived at an opportune time for the Italian front, as troop shortages had become acute in that secondary theater. (To the point that a neighboring unit was Task Force 45, a brigade-sized group of anti-aircraft artillerymen pressed into service as infantry!)

The Brazilians had hard-won experience against German troops over the winter but played major role in the final breakout and pursuit across Northern Italy that resulted in the first mass capitulation of Axis troops in Europe. In addition to the Brazilian Division, that country also contributed a squadron of fighter pilots that also served in Italy as well as some support formations.

It's an interesting story and I'm glad it's been told.

Gale Force Nine license for Axis & Allies products lapsed.

I don't know if this has been mentioned elsewhere, but I didn't see it at first glance: Gale Force Nine reports that there license for Axis & Allies products has lapsed so they can no longer produce or sell those items.

this means that the vinyl War at Sea map, the tokens and the stands for the ships are all gone. I liked the map, especially, and I'm sorry that's gone. I used the tokens for both AAM and WAS but I believe Litko has tokens that are usable substitutes. I never tried the stands.

Weather effects

As we start to batten down the hatches in preparation for the arrival of Mean Irene, it prmpted some pondering on the effect of weather in wargame -- or more precisely, the effect of extreme weather.

For the most part, until fairly recently in history, any sort of severe weather pretty much brought a halt to military proceedings. It was challenging enough to feed, clothe and move troops during normal times in the ancient era and most of the black powder era, without trying to do it in bad weather. The cases of major battles or campaign fought in extreme weather conditions or notable in part because they were so rare -- such as Washington's crossing of the Delaware.

Often bad weather caused battles to be postponed or even canceled. This all began to change as the Industrial Revolution gained steam and it became easier to supply armies and the general wealth increased. Railroads and steamships reduced the impact of bad weather on movements and fighting through poor campaign seasons and in the face of bad weatehr became more common.

By the 20th century warfare had reached the point where ideas such as "winter quarters" were obsolete and fighting continued year round through the seasons. It also expanded geographically into cold weather climates, jungles and deserts and other extreme locales.

One offshoot of this evolution is that modern-era wargames often have to take weather into account -- whereas it's an exceptional thing in ancient and black powder era games. But there's bad weather and then there's bad weather, and when we are talking about monstrous storms such as Irene, then there's no question of trying to represent tactical combat -- fighting would be impossible. But the time scale covered by most larger scale operational and strategic games doesn't lend itself to dealing with transient events such as hurricanes. A strategic level wargame depicting the entire US east Coast would probably involve turns covering a week or a month or more, whereas the entire hurricane event will be over in a week.

Here and there a game will through in a severe weather rule (Columbia Game's Pacific Victory and typhoons, for example) but generally it's ignored unless it's part of a larger climate. This does mean tha some historically significant storm events (such as the storm that aborted the probable Battle of Newport in the American Revolution) can't get an adequate representation.

Some new design techniques such as card-driven games may provide a way around that, though.

Hauled out an old-timer today

Yes, I hauled out one of my all-time favorite game -- a set of miniatures rules from the 1980s called The Complete Brigadier.

Covering the heart of the black power era, from 1680 to 1880, The Complete Brigadier is a very tactical game ruthlessly focus on the perspective of a brigade-level commander.

My miniatures for this set of rules are from Flaying Pan & Blanket Amalgamated, 20 mm scale American Revolution figures. It just so happened that a couple of decades ago I often had staff duty officer while stationed in Germany. And because we were a nuclear-capable missile unit, we had secret message traffic all night long, so the SDO could not nap. As a consequence I had quite a bit of time on mu hands on a weekly basis and I used it to paint up a few hundred figures. I haven't had that kind of time since.

I won't say that they are well-painted, but they;re passable for wargame purposes.

I like the rules because they're very straightforward and while reasonably complex, they are intuitive. The rules concentrate on formations and orders and are deterministic when it comes to fireing and melee. There are enough modifiers that the outcome of combats is not overly predictable.

I ran a demo of the game at the local game shop today. I commanded a British force comprised of two regular foot battalions, a small converged grenadier battalion, an even smaller squadron of dragoons, a full-sized artillery battery and some Indians. Deployed off to one flank across a stream were three large battalions of Hessians, but unknown to the American player this was just a distraction force. The Hessians didn't know the stream was fordable and would therefore not take part in the attack.

The American player -- experienced with board games and Magic: The Gathering but not historical miniatures -- had a force comprised of a battalion of Continetnal Line, a battalion of militia, small battalions of light infantry and riflemen, a troop of dragoons and a small artillery battery. His missionw as to defend the hill, specifically the mansion near the top.

Because the opposing player was a newbie, a treated this as demo game, without a focus on victory for one side or the other. That said, it was an interesting and well-fought battle.

The Americans basically deployed in two lines of units -- with the first line made up of the militia, the Continentals and the light infantry, while the dragoons, rifles and artillery formed the second line.

For my part I placed the Indians on the far left, with an eye towards having them sweep on a wide flanking move though some woods. On the right I placed the lights and the dragoons, whose mission was to fix the Americans in front of them. In a compact mass in the center I placed the grenadiers and foot, with the artillery lined up in column on the road. I hoped to outflank the main American line with fire support form the guns.

The battle more or less followed the plan, with the inevitable adjustments due to the enemy's vote. On the right the lights advanced into firing range of both the American light infantry and the rifles while the dragoons attracted the attention of the gunners. There ensued a long exchange of fire that the lights and dragoons eventually lost. The good news is that this tied up half the American force for most of the battle, but the bad news was that it was costly.

The American player was not content to passively accept the attack and moved the Continentals and the dragoon troop up to meet the main British attack. The dragoons and the light infantry were pushed back by the advancing British foot units and as the game ended due to time on Turn 10 the British grenadiers and the Buffs were about to take the house. The American dragoons with the rebel general attached were last seen sabering the fleeing remnants of the other British foot unit but were out of the battle. Likewise the Continentals could not resist the opportunity to charge the British guns just as they were about to unlimber -- chasing them back and eventually capturing the whole lot. This also, however, removed the only regular formed Ameircan unit fromt he critical point.

Left holding the bag were the hapless militia, who were hit on both flanks. On one side was the Buffs, while on the other side were the Indians, who had completed their sweeping move and were now in the American rear area. The militia dissolved in a quick rout.

Overall, with two turns left, the Americans had no formed troops left in position to contest the objective, but the game ended due to time before the final moves could be made.

Still, it was a hard-fought battle, with the British side suffering more heavily. Of the American units the Continentals, the light infantry and the artillery were all unscathed., while the rifles had 9 of 12 left and the dragoons 5 of 6 figures left. Only the militia unit was completely destroyed.

On the British side, in contrast, the light infantry, dragoons on one foot unit had all routed off the field and the artillery battery were prisoners! The grenadiers had 10of 12 left while the Buffs had 22 of 24 figures left. Only the Indians had avoided loss.

Perhaps I was too hard on Archibald

My first impression of the Archibald, the human cannonball hero in Invasion From Outr Space was that he was a hard hero to use effectively. His talent of "Fire Me!" would likely see him stuck in the middle of a bunch of angry Martians every time it was used and he'd die a quick death without accomplishing much.

Well, he proved me wrong Friday at a game session of the Central Connecticut Wargamers.

We were playing a four-player scenario of Abduction. Two opposing players handled the Martians, while Mark Kalina had Angelica the bearded lady and R.J. Flanagan, the ringmaster. I started with Lucrezia the contortionist and Cassidy the trick shooter.

The first half of the game went passably well for the heroes, as the novice Martian players had some trouble marshaling their resources effectively and the initial board configuration was favorable to the heroes with four of the six allies in a clump on the Ferris Wheel/Trapeze Tent board. The Purple Martian player also had early bad luck in getting his troops beamed down.

Eventually the Martians started to get their act together and the heroes became hard-pressed. Bosley the elephant and Jimmy the stable boy were off by themselves and picked off by the Martians, although Cassidy did pick off a few Martians headed for Jimmy. Soon it became clear that the Heroes had to concentrate their forces to protect the clump, though, as the Martians gathered a large force, including the Zard beast, nearby.

Despite some heroism that saw Lucrezia defeat the Zard Beast in hand-to-hand combat and blast a full back of Martians with a bomb, overwhelming Martian numbers finally told. A Saucer blast took out poor Cassidy. While this brought in Jo Jo, the dancing bear was too far away to be an immediate help. And immediate help was what the Heroes needed as Lucrezia finally fell to an assault by a full Martian pack led by the newly arrived Martian Leader. The full back was stacked with two of the remaining allies (the twins and Doc Mesmer) and was just two squares (one move by the Martian Leader pack) from a saucer. Neither Angelica nor RJ was in a position to intervene. It was basically game over on the next Martian move barring some amazing turn of luck -- as the Martian players noted gloatingly.

Well, that amazing luck arrived in the form of Archibald, who arrived nearby. He rolled just enough to movement to make it to the cannon that's next tot he trapeze tent, climbed in and fired himself through the tent (oh, and that part of it was on fire) to land on top of the Martian leader's pack. Bam! All three regular Martians were killed and the Leader was wounded -- and Archibald promptly boxed him into oblivion as well. RJ and Angelica also had good turns knocking off Martians and suddenly the worm had turned.

The Martian regrouped and brought in a new wave and redirected their efforts against the Ferris Wheel, where Texas Jack and the Fuji Merman were hiding out. JoJo came to the rescue here, battling back the Martians, for a few turns. Angelica and RJ, who were guarding the twins and Mesmer, were trapped by fire covering both exits of the Trapeze Tent at a critical moment, and suddenly it looked like Jo Jo was about to be overwhelmed by a new Martian Leader-led full pack. Archibald rolled up a Power Token and dashed to another nearby cannon. Again he fired himself through the Ferris Wheel and right into the Martian Leader's pack. Bam! Three dead regular Martians and a wounded Martian Leader were the result. And once again Archibald boxed the dazed Martian Leader out!

Now time was running out for the Martians -- with just a couple of turns left they couldn't abduct allies in time so they had to concentrate on killing heroes instead. Poor Archibald's number came up and the big galoot of a Hero fell in a barrage of ray gun fire. Hannah the fire breather rushed onto the scene, but she was on the other side of the board and there simply wasn't time for her to reach the action.

It came down to a final turn's assault on Jo Jo, the dancing bear, by five Martians, including a full pack in the bear's square. The ray gun blasts left Jo Jo hanging on by a thread -- one more wound and the Martians would win! In a card-enhanced 4-die to 2-die fight JoJo rolled a 6 and with the bear's talent and a power token to boost it to a seven and the game was saved. (In the Hero turn JoJo would simply step back out of range so there wouldn't be a fight in the Hero turn.)

While they didn't survive, Lucrezia and, especially, Archibald were clearly the heroes of the fight. Archibald took out two Martian leaders and two full packs and several other Martians as well. Lucrezia killed the Zard beast and a full pack as well as a couple of other stray Martians. Cassidy did quite a bit of damage before she fell as well, taking out pairs of Martians three or four times. Jo Jo was also devastating. Angelica was effective when she finally got into the fight, but she had a lot of low movement rolls. RJ Flanagan did his thing, although he's not much of a fighter. Hannah is normally a powerful Hero, but she showed up on the next-to-last turn this time and played no part in the outcome.

Everyone agreed that it was a highly entertaining story -- and that the Martians had the game in the bag until Archibald's timely appearance and amazing heroics. It was very B-movie cinematic.

No new OGRE until at least (?!) 2012

1977 OGRE

Wow, this news from Steve Jackson is a real bummer.

Jackson:

I haven't done a good enough job recently of communicating the status of Ogre 6th Edition. The status is: Still planned, still the super-fancy as per the prototypes you can see on that page (and which I expect will show up in the display case at PAX in a couple of weeks) . . .

And definitely still not on track for 2011. I warned everyone in May that it might not happen in 2011, and now I can say it definitely won't. I knew that at the end of June, before I took July off, and I should have shared.

He goes on to note that he gets more mail about this project than any other one -- to say this is highly anticipated would be an understatement.

An undercurrent to Jackson's announced plans is a hint that this may be the last edition of Ogre, ever. The base game has been out of print for a very long time despite a high level of demand, so clearly demand is not the only factor at play here.

I wonder if there isn;t some emotional attachment involved as well. Ogre was Jackson's first design -- and it was/is a big hit. It started out as a very inexpensive, bare-bones wargame and it looks like it may go out in a super deluxe version that could fairly be described as a collector's edition. It's supposed to include most of the content from GEV and Shcokwave as well, which pretty much guarantees there will not be any expansion of follow-up products. He said that there will be just the one print run and he'll let the after market fight over it from then on.

Cute cooperative game -- Forbidden Island

Tried out a recent cooperative game called Forbidden Island at the local game shop and liked it enough that I brought it home, where it proved to be a hit with the kids as well.

The basic idea is a party of advaneturers searching for clues on a slowly sinking island that will lead them to four treasures -- which they have to find and take off the island.

The components in the Gamewright edition are nice. Everything comes in a tin with a well-designed plastic insert, There's a small, full-color rule book, a cardboard water level tarck with a plastic slider, six wooden pawns to represent the adventurers, four failry large palstic miniatures representing the four treasures, 24 double-sided cardboard tiles to represent the island and a deck of 58 cards. 24 of those are "flood cards" one for each isand tile adn six are character cards, one for each pawn. the remaining 28 cards make up the treasure deck.

The game starts by randomly laying out the island tiles in 6 rows of 2, 4, 6, 6, 4 and 2 tiles each, forming a rough diamond shape. Players randomly pick a character from the six available, each of which has a special ability and a specific starting tile.

Six cards from the flood deck are selected, flipping the named tiles to their flooded tile. If a flooded tile gets flooded again, it "sinks into the abyss" and is removed from the game, along with it's card.

On a player's turn he can take three actions with his pawn. The available options are to move to an adjacent tile, but not diagonally, to "shore up" and adjacent tile by flipping a flooded tile back to its dry side, give a treasure card to anotehr player on the same tile or "capture a Treasure" by turning in four cards that match the treasure on one of two tiles that bear the image of that treasure. Players can repeat the same action, so a player could move three tiles, flip three tiles or trade three cards or any combination of those.

After a player has completed all actions he draws two cards from the treasure deck. Most of these are simple treasure cards, five for each treasure figurine. They have no game effect aside from needing to discard four of them while on an appropriate tile to claim the treasure. There are two helpful treasure cards -- sandbags, which allow the flipping of a flooded tile anywhere on the board without costing an action and Helicopter Lift, which allows moving any or all pawns from one tile to any other tile. You also need a Helicopter Lift at the end of the game to win. After gathering all four figurines, the explorers much gather at the helicopter landing zone called tile (Fool's Landing) and leave via the play of a Helicopter Lift card. There are also three Water Rises cards, which move the water mater up one tick on the meter.

Complicating this is the last part of a player's turn, where he draws Flood Cards to see which tiles get flipped or sink into the abyss. The number of cards drawn depends on the current state of the water meter, but ranges from 2 to 5 per player turn. As a tile that gets flipped twice disappears the island can rapidly turn into a tough place to move around. No dawdling!

The difficulty level of the game is adjusted by changing the starting level of the water meter. At Novice or Normal levels the Flood Card draw starts at 2, while at the Elite and Legendary levels it starts at 3.

The two plays today were at Novice Level and the players won each time, but they caught some lucky breaks in the set up and I can see how it would get tougher at the more difficult levels.

Playing time is rated at about 30 minutes and that seems about right, which probably puts it in the category of a supplementary game for a night's entertainment, rather than the main course. It also works a s a kid's game.

It's a good value for the money as well. I paid just $20 for my copy at the game store and I've seen it online for less.

Memoir '44 Grand Campaign finished

Finished my first Grand Campaign from the Campaign book against Game Store Tony. It was a very near run thing, but Tony's Germans managed to prevail with a pretty convincing 6-3 win in the final game. This game him a 2 point Major Victory in the campaign and a 4-2 overall Grand Campaign victory.

It all did come down to the last game, though and had the medal count been reversed the Allies would have won a Minor campaign victory, worth 1 point, and therefore edged out a 3-2 Grand Campaign win. Nicely balanced.

Next we're moving on to the Russian front for a Grand Campaign of Barbarossa. Unlike the Normandy Campaign set up, where the outcomes of different battles would direct the Grand Campaign down different Campaign paths, in the Barbarossa Grand Campaign there are just some small variations among the battles played, but all three Campaigns get played -- one each for Army Group North, Center and South. The twist is that you play the first half of all three Campaigns first and then go back and play the send half of the campaigns. This seems like it will make it hard to gauge overall progress toward victory in the early going.

The battles will also be interesting. All will be played with the Red Army Commissar rule, which basically forces the Soviet player to play his command cards a turn behind the action. He plays his command card under the Commissar and then executes it the next turn (with certain exceptions such as Ambush and Counterattack). Game Store Tony has volunteered to play the Soviet side for this campaign.

A few more thoughts on Invasion From Outer Space

I think it's worth pointing out that Invasion, while a skirmish-level "wargame," doesn't get into any nitty gritty details about what your character is doing in the sens of tracking postures, facing or the like. You character is simply in a space, carrying one or two items. About the only detail that's tracked is whether it's a 2-handed item, in which case you can just carry one. This is much less detail than, for example, Munchkin.

This opens up the possibility for some house rules if you want to create a stronger narrative for the game, at the cost of slowing it down. Still, I could see importing some rules from more detailed skirmish-level games without too much trouble. This would work especially well if you have just one hero per player. If there's a drawback to the game it is that it might be too simple for the more hard-core gamer types if they're only handling one character.

I also think that inexperienced hero teams should probably be given an extra "life" or two, as the learning curve is really quite steep. In a game the other night the Heroes got off to a real strong start in am "Invasion" scenario, killing 16 Martians without a loss -- and then they lost two heroes in the same turn and were done. Perhaps a group with no experienced players should be given two extra heroes in the Invasion scenario (and they really have no business playing any of the other scenarios at all). If a set of Heroes has half or more inexperienced players they should get one extra hero life. In this case I'd define an inexperienced player as someone who has never played, has only played the Invasion scenario or hasn't played in a year or more.

As I mentioned, there are two scenarios (Blow 'em Out of the Sky and Unleashed) that are really for experienced players only and I don't think they can afford to have any inexperienced players to have a chance, but should they insist they probably should also get extra chances with dead heroes.

Another balancing mechanic would be to give players an extra hero card or two, but I think more replacement heroes is probably more helpful. Using the cards properly requires some undertsanding of the game and probably won't help a newbie much, while being able to survive a run of bad luck that leaves your hero dead is the sort of break a newbie can use.

Invasion From Outer Space: The Martian Game

Invasion From Outer Space: The Martian Game, is a very campy cinematic-style 2010 wargame from Flying Frog Productions, using the same system from its zombie game Last Night on Earth.

When I say "cinematic-style," I mean that the game doesn't try to depict "reality" as such, but rather attempts to capture the "reality" of a movie or television show -- which we know isn't quite reality at all.

The game relentlessly evokes a cinematic style, with developed "characters," scenarios that resemble movie plots, artwork that appears to be "stills" from a movie and it even includes a soundtrack.
In a touch of brilliance, the game pits Mars Attacks! style Martian invaders against Circus Performers! Now, I'm unaware of any actual movie that had that match up, but there should have been.

On one side are the Martians, controlled by one or two players, depending upon the number of players in the game (helpfully divided into blue and purple Martians) comprising a regukar force of 18 soldiers and two Martian "champions" -- a leader and a"Zard beast."

The game is asymmetric, with the Martin s acting together through the turn phases -- so all Martians move at the same time and fire their ray guns at the same time, for example. In contrast, the heroes each take their turns individually, so each hero moves, shoots and fights before the next one acts at all.

Both sides have decks of cards they can draw from, although this is also asymmetrical. The Martians get 2 cards per turn, with the possibility for more, while the Heroes get more cards by giving up their movement for a turn and "searching" while in a building. This entitles them to draw one card. Giving up a move is a pretty severe penalty for the heroes, however, as greater mobility is one of their key advantages over the Martians. Most of the time the Martians move a single square per turn, while the human heroes move 1-6 spaces depending on an die roll.
And yes, the board uses squares. The heavy card stock board is a full-color overhead view of a circus or carnival. There's a double-sided central board (one side depicts a "big-top" tent while the flip side is then open "fairgrounds." There are six L-shaped single-sided boards depicting various other portions of the circus. Four of these are randomly selcted and arranged around the central board to make a 21-inch by 21-inch playing surface.

The highlight of the components are the figures. There are 18 regular Martian soldiers in three poses and two colors. These come with clear plastic "domes" you glue on for the proper effect. There are also the two aforementioned Martian champions, a leader and a beast in a neutral steel blue beacuse they can be used by either player if there are two Martian players.

The Hero side is comprised of eight highly detailed (very suitable for painting by those so inclined and talented) grey plastic heroes.

There are two decks of sturdy cards, one each for the Heroes and for the Martians. Both sets include "events" that can be played to aid your side or hinder the other. The Humans also have access to various helpful items, many of which are weapons, while the Martians have "Technology" cards that can enhance them in sundry ways.

Other components include dice, thick card stock templates, hero cards, scenario cards and other play aids and several counter sheets of glossy counters. It's all very snazzy and attractive. There 32-page full-color illustrated rule book book explains the fairly straightforward game system comprehensively and even inldes rules for combining the Last Night of Earth game with Invasion You can have the circus performers fight off zombies instead of Martians, for example, or have the Martians invade the town instead of the circus. You can even combine the two games into a massive three-sided Humans vs. Zombies vs. Martians battle that can accommodate up to 8 players.

There's a basic game that leaves out a few of the more involved rules and a third of each deck and has just one scenario -- "Invasion" -- which is basically a straightforward battle. Most groups will want to transition quickly into the "Advanced" game which adds four more scenarios.

The rule book doesn't provide much guidance, except to note that the learning curve is steeper for the hero side, but the most balanced for new players is definitely the Invasion Scenario. The Heroes are trying to kill 20 Martians before they lose two of their own. It's worth mentioning that the Hero side si always comprised of four heroes, no matter how many players there are. In a 2-player game one person controls all four heroes, while in a 5- or 6-player game each hero is controlled by one player. If a Hero is killed, then a new one comes on the board immediately to replace the fallen one. Two of the scenarios "Abduction" and "Wipe Them Out" involve the Heroes trying to protect circus allies or crowds, respectively, with the burden of attack on the Martian side. These are still very challenging for inexperienced heroes, but not hopeless. The other two scenarios, "Blow 'em Out of the Sky" and "Unleashed" are for experienced heroes players only. Both involve finding specific cards from the deck as prerequisites for the actions needed to win and the burden for victory rests with the Hero side.

That's not to say that the Heroes don't have some advantages. They are, as noted, potentially much faster than the Martians and if they find ranged weapons they will usually out-range the Martians. For some reason the Martian ray guns are very short-ranged -- just one square. (I don't know why, heavier Earth gravity, perhaps, or maybe thicker Earth air). Even a revolver has a range of three squares, in contrast. And the Martian fire isn't all that accruate, hitting on a 5 or 6 on a D6. Three Martians can share a square and if they do, they get several advantages -- including shooting better -- they now hit on a 4-6. But the humans get a saving roll against each potential hit. each has an "agility rating" but even the least agile has a 50% chance of dodging a ray gun blast.

When Heroes and Martians are in the same square they "fight." Each Martian rolls one die, while each Hero rolls two dice -- with various cards and special abilities potentially affecting the results. The higesht single die roll determines the winner. So, for example, if a Hero is fighting a single martian and rolls a 3 and 5 while the Martian rolls a 4, then the Hero wins. If, however, the Martian had rolled a 6, he would win. The loser take a "wound," which is enough to kill an ordinary Martian. All the heroes and the Martian champions can take more than one wound.

The entire system is quick and intuitive and easy to teach to new players. It';s also quite colorful, a s quick rundown of the Heroes reveals.

The two strongest Heroes are Carl, the Strongman and Jo Jo, the Dancing Bear. While nether one can use guns, they both have special abilities that help them in a fight. Every Hero has several special abilities, inlcuding one that is called a "Talent." Talents are especially powerful, but require spending a "Power Token" to use. Each Hero starts the game with a Power Token and has a 33% chance of getting an additional one every turn, to a maximum of three. For example, Carl always rolls an extra fight die as part of his "Heavyweight" special ability, but in addition he can spend a Power Token to activate his "Bash Heads" talent which allows him to do an extra wound whenever he wins a fight. Carl and Jo Jo are both tough, taking four wounds to kill, although they are somewhat vulnerable to the ray guns -- only dodging on a roll of 4+. They'll normally be used to wade into hand-to-hand combat with Martians.

At the other extreme are Lucrezia, the Contortionist, and R.J. Flannigan, the Ringmaster. They die on their second wound, but are very agile, dodging on a 2 or better. They each have some movement bonuses and have some healing ability. Lucrezia and heal herself of one wound if she give sup a move, while R.J. can heal himself or another hero by spending a Power Token and rolling a 3+. They're best used to search for stuff, although their dodging ability is useful to frustrate Martian ray gun fire.

The other three ladies among the heroes can form some deadly combos, depending on who is in the game. Hannah, the fire breather, has a devastating Fireball attack than can take out more than one Martian at once while Cassidy, the Trick Shooter is deadly with firearms. Angelica, the Bearded Woman, has the unique talent of Teamwork, which lets her copy any other hero's Talent. This can be a nasty if she teams up with Hannah, of Cassidy (assuming Angelica gets a gun)> It also combos nicely with R.J. healing ability and Carl's head bashing. These three are of average toughness, taking three wounds to kill and dodge on a 3+.

With similar stats is Archibald, the Human Cannonball, but his talents eems alkittle hard to use efefctively. He can fire himself from one of the circus cannons scattered around the board with a potentially deadly effect on any martians he lands on. That's good, but it also means he's likely to end up in the middle of some Martians when he's done.

Besides their stats, each Hero has a little background bio, helping to set the proper movie-like mood. For example. Lucrezia, the Contortionist "Left at the stoop of the ringmaster's wagon as an infant, the only life Lucrezia has ever known is that of the circus. As the youngest performer, her exotic nature and fantastic abilities only further her desire to discover the truth of her mysterious past ... and her terrible nightmare."

While all game designs are collaborative efforts, Invasion has an impressively Hollywood style list of credits, including 19 listed "Cast" members. And it has a soundtrack.

I'm no music critic, and the sound track is nice enough, but I have to admit that it didn't seem very 1950s-ish. Still, it wouldn't hurt to have it playing softly in the background. Overall this is a really nice production and I've had some fun introducing it to new players. The game warns that it has a "mature" theme, but I don't think it's especially problematical for most ages. The scariness is rather cartoonish and while it's rated as being for 12 and up, in reality younger kids can easily grasp the game concepts and probably have seen worse on TV on a Saturday afternoon.

Sorry for the hiatus

Among the travails of volunteer blogging is that sometimes life crowds you out.

Wings of War: Session and casualty report

One of the pitfalls of a public gaming day is the risk of mishaps, and so it was on a fine July afternoon that my Werner Voss Albatros D.III met its end in its maiden flight. Sigh.

The day's inaugural battle at the redoubtable Arkham Asylum was a small version of my "Lafyatte, We Are Here' scenario. On the Allied side were a rocket-armed Nieuport 16 and a Nieuport 17, both from the Lafyatte Escadrille. On the German side was the above-mentioned Albatros, defending a Balloon with the help of three ground-based machine-gun nests.

As the balloon-busting mission is inherently challenging, I took the two Nieuprots while a rookie player (one of the Magic: The Gathering crowd at Arkham Asylum) took the Albatros.

It was an entertaining battle, as the rookie flew decently enough and I, too, am really a rookie, having just a few game under my belt as well. I'm pretty familiar with the rules, but like a newbie out of flight school I still need some seasoning in battle. In any case I was able to get qute a few shots on the balloon, but not enough to down it. My planes took a few hits, but neither was in danger of going down, barring an unlucky hit. I hadn't been tracking turns, but my guess is that were were close to or slightly past the 12-turn stand when the German player announced this would have to be his last turn. Ah, if only we'd just ended it there. While willing enough, the rookie was rather obviously much more comfortable rifling through cards than handling miniatures gently and there had already been a few close calls when somehow his hand brushed across the table and the Albatros went flying (I didn't see the move). Instinctively he did the wrong thing and stepped back and there was quite a loud crunch as Voss' plane became a compete wreck.

He gallantly offered twice to pay for the model, but I refused. I had invited him to play, after all, and frankly, I blamed myself because I had allowed the model to be too close to the table edge -- it was actually off of the playing mat and should have been replaced with the card, hindsight (and my future practice) tells.

There was a break in the action and when we resumed I ran through a couple of solitaire games with Frank Luke alone in his SPAD 13 against the balloon and its machine guns. The first mssision ended in the first shot as the balloon blew up! Fun, but not really very instructive. So I played through again and managed to down the balloon in just under the 12 turns on the second play through. This is an indication of how challenging the balloon busting mission is -- even unopposed it can be tough.

At left, Frank Luke lines up for a shot at the balloon.

A new rookie pilot, intrigued by the balloon busting (and thankfully much more adept with his hands) took up the challenge of defending the balloon. This time it was Luke and Rickenbacker against a Fokker D.VII. I gave Luke incendiary bullets and made him a bullet-checker, so he'd have less change to jam.

The new rookie, while new to Wings of War, was another experienced Magic player and also has played a few of the other wargames I've brought to the store on occasion. While not a wargamer, he's a smart dude and a quick learner. And, as I found out, the Fokker D.VII is areal nasty foe. Indeed, this was the very first time I'd seen it on the board nad it's shockingly maneuverable. It has several maneuvers that I haven't seen available to any other plane, as matter of fact.

Still, things got off to a decent start. While the Fokker nicked Luke on the way in, he and Captain Eddie were able to get multiple shots on the balloon and start to whittle it down. The ground fire wasn't too bad . I was able to wiggle Luke in through a gap in the anti-aircraft ring and Rickenbacker's direct challenge to a gun resulted in a couple of "0" damage draws. So far so good.

At right, the Fokker just misses a shot at Luke.

Meanwhile the Fokker was able to draw a bead on Rickenbacker for a close range shot. The first card drawn was another "0" but the second was the dreaded explosion! Captain Eddie was gone, just like that. Naturally this cahnged the tnor of the fight considerably. Luke doggedly made passes at the balloon, which stubbornly refused to go down, despite being set on fire a couple of time. Luke managed a couple of passing shots on the Fokker as well, including a few nicely lined up on the tail. (After the battle the German player revealed that all the Fokker hits were "0" or "1." ) Finally Luke scored with an "explosion" card and the balloon was down -- but Luke himself got caught up in the blast and his battered SPAD 13 went down as well. The Fokker was also within the blast zone, but survived with a total of 11 hits.

The nice thing about Wings of War is that it's easy to pick up, and I plan to host another round of battles in a couple of weeks --although with a little more care to prevent real casualties .

The balloons are tough to take out -- I think next time I'll let the Germans try their hand at it. The Fokker D.VII was a shock. It's clearly far better than a SPAD 13. I'll have to throw a Snipe into the mix next time I use those.

Losing faith

Yep, I'm beginning to lose faith that the official published "historical" scenarios got play tested at all.

Our latest challenge to the faith involved one of the two scenarios that came with the North Africa 1940-1943 Map Guide: Operation Battleaxe.

Now, it looked to be a promising scenario as far as entertainment went, with a grand total of 17 AFV between the two sides and three maps to fight over, but even as I collected the tanks needed for the scenario I had my doubts about the German chances.


While, from a point value perspective, the Germans had an edge, 125 points to 100, but the British had Matildas! I strongly suspected that this would be the key fact about the order of battle. As has been my practice, I adjusted the order of battle to reflect that more historically accurate pieces have become available since the scenario was published -- in this case I substituted two DAK infantry men for the listed Wehrmacht Veteran Infantryman units listed. I didn't adjust the British OBeven though the Germans were down 2 points because I didn't think the difference was enough to warrant it. As events played out the differences between the units would not have mattered.

The first game of the match I took the British. The German objective was to either capture the town or have three units on the road at the end of any turn. I judged that the town victory condition was likely to be moot, because if the Germans were strong enough to take the town against resistance then they'd undoubtedly be strong enough to have three units on the road.

So I placed two riflemen in the town to prevent the Germans from simply waltzing in, while the 2-pounder anti-tank gun and the third rifleman prepared to occupy the small knoll southwest of the town. The Matilda troop set up near the town while the Crusader troop was to the East. My basic battle plan was to rush the Crusaders forward to give the Germans pause, but avoid a decisive engagement with them until the Matildas came up. The ATG was going to backstop the defense against any leakers. The Germans set up in line abreast across the bottom south end of of the map, with the tanks on the right.

The ensuing battle went more or less according to plan. The Crusaders did rush forth. The Germans advanced cautiously in the face of a couple of Overwatch markers and soon enough the Matilda troop was up. For the next several turns there was parry and thrust, probe and dance -- with most of the shooting on both sides at long range. The Germans were getting the worse of it, however, generally losing a vehicle a turn. Finally, with the clock running out the fastest German survivors, a halftrack bearing an infantry unit and the armored car, made a dash for the road along the east edge of the map. The British were so lightly prssed that I had been able to reinforce the backstop ATG with wo Crusaders and between them they were able to shoot up the attack. Total British losses were a Crusader destroyed and one Matilda damaged. The Gemrans lost everything except for one Panzer III and a couple of Panzer IVs.

The flip side match went much the same. The British setup was similar, except that the Matlidas and Crsuades were interspersed. I palced the light Germans units on the left, intending on them skulking about in the Wadi while the tanks won their fight. The Panzer IVs and IIIs set up in a group on the right. I planned to advance using the cover of the hill complex on the right side of the map and some strategic placement of smoke from the Panzer IIIs.

Things went more or less by plan, although without success. The smoke helped a nit, but the Overwatch rule still cost the Germans a bit and in the end they still came out the worst in the tank dogfight that developed around the small brush area on the east side of the center map. British losses were somewhat heavier than the first game, with three of the four Crusaders destroyed and the fourth one damaged. With similar losses on the German side, but everything still came down to a last turn rush by German survivors (A Panzer IV, the armored car and a halftrack carrying an infantryman). The British only needed to get one of them to prevent the win and the 2-pounder was up to the task, blowing up the halftrack -- And the three Matildas still hadn't taken their shots.

The Matildas are simply too tough to handle, while the 2 pounder gun on all the British armor and the ATG is adequate against the German armor at battle ranges. The Panzer IIIs and the Crusaders are an even match. While the smoke is useful, it's no more so than the Vanguard special ability which lets the British advance far enough to put pressure on the Germans from the first game turn.

So far I haven't been very impressed with the historical scenarios offered, which is too bad, because they provide a chance to play a different style of game than the straightforward duel of a competitive point-based scenario. Given the obvious mismatches so far, I suspect that there was little play testing done.