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Never tried Harpoon, thought it was only a videogame  I think in FitL you have to be really careful with how much you deploy/are active as the US because it's really easy to give the win to the ARVN. What do people think is the easiest faction? Probably the hardest win is the NVA but what's the easiest? VC? VC is easy in terms of objectives/how to achieve them but I don't know if it is the easiest in terms of actually winning.
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Oct 13, 2014 20:09
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I clipped my counters on my new copy of FitL. Do you guys clip counters? They just look so much cleaner.
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Oct 13, 2014 20:23
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Lord Frisk posted:I clipped my counters on my new copy of FitL. Do you guys clip counters? They just look so much cleaner. I clipped the wooden cubes 
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Oct 13, 2014 20:26
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I should probably do my copy of FitL and the other COINs i have, for some reason I find it easier to do games with 500+ pieces. Current record is 1400 counters for a single game.
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Oct 13, 2014 20:28
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How do you store over a thousand counters 
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Oct 13, 2014 21:24
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Dre2Dee2 posted:How do you store over a thousand counters 
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Oct 13, 2014 21:28
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I keep Field of Fire's 880 counters in two and a half GMT trays. It's really not that much of a deal as it sounds.
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Oct 13, 2014 23:13
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GMT Counter Trays come in packs of ten!
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Oct 13, 2014 23:36
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So I played some Vietnam Solitaire: Special Edition over the weekend and it's pretty bad. I only played the special edition rules though, from what I understand the original rules may be better. Problems I saw with the game in order of seriousness: The game is a best-case design. What I mean by this is that the designer relies on randomness to provide a coherent and interesting game, much like BatHotH. In the best-case, this will work out great, and also have a low rules burden. In the worst case, however, the game may be entirely trivial or impossibly difficult, or just not make any sense at all. For example, the entire NVA might sit right outside Saigon for the entire endgame without making a move because the offensive die roll did not come up pointing at Saigon. Compare to the best solitaire game ever made (The Barbarossa Campaign), where, due to how the economy phase works the game always have an overarching story. Depending on how well you do and how lucky you are (and luck is somewhat mitigated by the chit system) you may do better or worse than history, but eventually the Soviets will bounce back and push hard. It makes sense narratively and every turns matters and feels tense. Further reading, The Lesson of Vlaada The game is broken. There is an exploit where you can keep the entire NVA trapped in Hue almost indefinitely. Eventually you run out of NVA counters to place in Hue and then the NVA can't appear anywhere else for the rest of the game. At that point you've just got to park a single unit in every other area to whack VC as they appear and you've won. I stumbled into this on my first game without reading about it. According to a BGG thread, this never occured to the designer. The combat system is annoying. It's roll-to-hit and most unit need to roll below or equal to 1 or 2 to hit. You can retreat after one round but you often don't want to so you have to roll a LOT of dice every time you fight some stupid VC unit.  He misses, I miss He misses, I miss He misses, I miss He misses, I hit, ok now for the next 5 battles.It's not offensively bad but I must say I expected more from a game that got its own episode on Three Moves Ahead and apparently spawned several clones.
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Oct 15, 2014 08:31
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I'm interested in solitary wargames because
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Oct 15, 2014 08:44
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We talked a bit about it earlier in the thread. In a nutshell, what's cool about it is that it uses completely asymmetric combat systems for the player (German) and AI (Soviet) which makes the AI turns not too complex to process but also organic feeling. Rather than track bonuses and penalties for every little thing the overall state of the war is condensed to an "initiative" score which limits what you/the Soviets can do. Drawbacks are a somewhat annoying and anticlimactic victory system, and terrible components in the current edition. There's a 2nd edition coming but knowing VPG (it's a small company with a lot of games) it won't be until halfway through next year or so.
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Oct 15, 2014 09:11
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I've been meaning to get the barbarossa campaign but none of my usual retailers seem to stock it at the moment. And I'm still waiting for Fields of Fire. Want to get my solitaire game fix 
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Oct 15, 2014 10:08
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Tekopo posted:I've been meaning to get the barbarossa campaign but none of my usual retailers seem to stock it at the moment. And I'm still waiting for Fields of Fire. Want to get my solitaire game fix I have a FoF game AND a Mage Knight solo game going on right now on my (big) dining room table. Mage Knight is getting more attention because I'm playing it this weekend with some friends, but being able to play for half an hour each night is great. 
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Oct 15, 2014 10:19
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I should really get Navajo Wars out more often. I really like it and I want to do an LP of it but I don't know anything about the era. Would anyone be interested in co-running the LP and writing historical updates?
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Oct 15, 2014 12:38
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Since we are talking about solitaire games has anyone played D-Day at Omaha beach? I'm interested in the newest version of the game D-Day at Tarawa hoping any mistakes have in the previous game we addressed. Also isn't FoF being reprinted?
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Oct 15, 2014 12:50
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Ropes4u posted:Since we are talking about solitaire games has anyone played D-Day at Omaha beach? I'm interested in the newest version of the game D-Day at Tarawa hoping any mistakes have in the previous game we addressed.
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Oct 15, 2014 12:53
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Morholt posted:We talked a bit about it earlier in the thread. The one main problem with Barbarossa campaign is the fact that the momentum track is what causes VPs to increase, so if you haven't won by the time the tide turns, you'll never win.
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Oct 15, 2014 15:30
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Yeah, I'm hoping that they'll replace/remake the VP victory for 2nd edition. It's not nearly as satisfying as capturing the three major objectives anyways.
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Oct 15, 2014 16:43
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I did a game of FitL solo this past weekend. I played as the US on the medium game. I got my rear end handed to be. The NVA was able to take and hold An Loc and the VC just exploded everywhere with an early Tet Offensive which forced a lot of my US pieces out of Vietnam, and and it was the card that would have let the VC player get the General Uprising card back if it had been used and if it hadn't (it wasn't) got to use that card as if it was General Uprising which allowed them to get a huge presence in Saigon which was at neutral support and they took the City of Hue. For much of the game the ARVN bot got bogged down in Lam Son 719 fighting wave after wave of NVA regulars. It was brutal, so brutal I sort of called it right there at the first (failed)coup card. I'm looking forward to trying it again as the US.I think this game might be the hardest to do solo cause of all the moving parts, like remembering the trump cards which are all able to be played in the medium game right? Also a question during the US commitment phase that player can only choose up to 6 pieces to move between available and the map (or the map to available)? KomradeX fucked around with this message at 22:10 on Oct 15, 2014 |
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Oct 15, 2014 22:04
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KomradeX posted:I did a game of FitL solo this past weekend. I played as the US on the medium game. I got my rear end handed to be. The NVA was able to take and hold An Loc and the VC just exploded everywhere with an early Tet Offensive which forced a lot of my US pieces out of Vietnam, and and it was the card that would have let the VC player get the General Uprising card back if it had been used and if it hadn't (it wasn't) got to use that card as if it was General Uprising which allowed them to get a huge presence in Saigon which was at neutral support and they took the City of Hue. For much of the game the ARVN bot got bogged down in Lam Son 719 fighting wave after wave of NVA regulars. It was brutal, so brutal I sort of called it right there at the first (failed)coup card. I'm looking forward to trying it again as the US.I think this game might be the hardest to do solo cause of all the moving parts, like remembering the trump cards which are all able to be played in the medium game right?
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Oct 15, 2014 22:53
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Tekopo posted:It's up to 10 pieces and up to 2 bases. You basically take all the areas with COIN control, the US Available box, LoCs and Saigon and move pieces within the limit between them (as in, if you move a piece from one COIN control to another COIN control, that counts against the limit). Okay thanks for the clarification
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Oct 16, 2014 18:27
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So I've become a lot more interested in Simmons Games products since learning that Rachel Simmons came out as transgender earlier this year. What would the wargame thread recommend as a good introduction to her games? And can any of them be found at a reasonable price anywhere?
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Oct 17, 2014 00:20
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Gutter Owl posted:So I've become a lot more interested in Simmons Games products since learning that Rachel Simmons came out as transgender earlier this year. Napoleon's Triumph is my favorite game of everything right now, it's a little hard to digest, and is too expensive right now (not in print). Guns of Gettysburg is also fantastic, available right now, and shorter. I'm not sure if I'd say it's easier to digest though. I think my suggestion would be, if you can find someone who has NT, have them teach you, it's genius. If you can't, buy GoG, learn it, play it with people, and try to find NT somewhere/somehow/someway.
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Oct 17, 2014 03:12
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I decided to do something crazy because I'm a complete idiot, check it out!
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Oct 17, 2014 23:04
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What are the threads thoughts on the best CDGs available. I've gotten multiple friends hooked on Twilight Struggle, and I'm hoping to see how deep the rabbit hole goes.
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Oct 19, 2014 22:08
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Lord Frisk posted:What are the threads thoughts on the best CDGs available. I've gotten multiple friends hooked on Twilight Struggle, and I'm hoping to see how deep the rabbit hole goes. The most acclaimed CDG is, actually, Twilight Struggle; but it's far from the most in-depth. Best multiplayer "pure" CDG I'd push for Virgin Queen. Pretty heavy, recommended as a 6-player game. Best "loosely a" CDG are any of the COIN games (Andean Abyss, Cuba Libre, A Distant Plain, upcoming Gallic War and Liberty or Death). Heavier two-player CDGs include Paths of Glory, Pursuit of Glory, umm...other stuff I forget.
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Oct 19, 2014 22:11
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Washington's War is the best 'stepping-stone' CDG that is more strictly speaking a wargame. If you want to dive into the deep end there is Empire of the Sun as well
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Oct 19, 2014 22:14
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Is Virgin Queen the go to for multiplayer CDG, COIN aside? That might be ideal. I know EotS is 1v1, how does Washington's War shake out?
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Oct 19, 2014 22:27
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It depends on the player count and if you want to play for 10 hours.
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Oct 19, 2014 22:44
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length of play is not an issue, nor is set max of players. more than two is the only criteria.
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Oct 19, 2014 23:07
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Lord Frisk posted:Is Virgin Queen the go to for multiplayer CDG, COIN aside? That might be ideal. I know EotS is 1v1, how does Washington's War shake out? Either Virgin Queen or Here I Stand. Considering Virgin Queen is the direct sequel to HIS and fixes a lot of the first game's issues; go with that.
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Oct 19, 2014 23:17
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I'm doing a game order and probably shouldn't include more than one solitaire wargame -- both Thunderbolt-Apache Leader and Navajo Wars look really tempting, though. Should I bite the bullet and get both, or is one much better (or much harder to find in general)?
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Oct 20, 2014 04:43
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rchandra posted:I'm doing a game order and probably shouldn't include more than one solitaire wargame -- both Thunderbolt-Apache Leader and Navajo Wars look really tempting, though. Should I bite the bullet and get both, or is one much better (or much harder to find in general)? I love Apache leader and it gets to the table on a regular basis. I feel likes its a great l, though brutal, game and can't speak of it highly enough. I decided to wait for the successor to navajo, Comanchería – The Rise and Fall of the Comanche Empire but other posters here have given navajo great reviews. I want all the GMT games and am probably the wrong person to ask.
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Oct 20, 2014 05:01
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Ropes4u posted:I want all the GMT games and am probably the wrong person to ask. You've pretty much invalidated every recommendation post I have in this thread.
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Oct 20, 2014 05:40
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Not sure this is the right thread, but figure it can't hurt to post here anyway: A bunch of buddies and I have a custom variant of Axis And Allies that we play in person when we can that's more diplomacy/policy based than the traditional. We've done some experimenting around with Vassal as a means of seeing if we could input our mods and get a fully fleshed out version for ourselves, but I'm relatively useless when it comes to any sort of mods to anything. Is there anyone here whose brain I could pick about this? Please PM if interested.
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Oct 21, 2014 15:14
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Spoonsy posted:Not sure this is the right thread, but figure it can't hurt to post here anyway: It's not particularly difficult to make a vassal module where you're just dragging things around on a map. You just need to have the images ready and you can make all the pieces and a map. The more you want Vassal to take care of(snapping to points on a map, card deck management, automation), the tougher it is.
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Oct 21, 2014 15:31
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Panzeh posted:It's not particularly difficult to make a vassal module where you're just dragging things around on a map. You just need to have the images ready and you can make all the pieces and a map. The more you want Vassal to take care of(snapping to points on a map, card deck management, automation), the tougher it is. It'd definitely be more of the deck management stuff that I'm afraid of. Some of the YouTube tutorials I've seen deal with the images, but I'm looking more towards building out something where there are prereqs upon prereqs for certain things, which are themselves time dependent. I have no idea if Vassal can even do that to be honest, but I figured I'd start here given my traditional A&A familiarity.
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Oct 21, 2014 18:49
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Spoonsy posted:It'd definitely be more of the deck management stuff that I'm afraid of. Some of the YouTube tutorials I've seen deal with the images, but I'm looking more towards building out something where there are prereqs upon prereqs for certain things, which are themselves time dependent. I have no idea if Vassal can even do that to be honest, but I figured I'd start here given my traditional A&A familiarity. That sounds like a bit too much automation for Vassal, unfortunately. Decks aren't too bad, neither is shuffling, it's when you get complicated deck setups like the COIN games where it gets to be a problem. If you want something to handle prerequisites for things, though, VASSAL really isn't going to be of much help.
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Oct 21, 2014 18:52
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Ropes4u posted:I love Apache leader and it gets to the table on a regular basis. I was leaning towards that one anyway, decided to go for it -- no longer in stock, curse my indecisive nature. Navajo Wars it is! Thanks.
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Oct 21, 2014 19:37
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I need to get TAL out more: it's also a prime candidate for running an LP since you can assign goons to the piloting places. I would run Navajo Wars but I don't really know that much about the history so I couldn't really do anything more than just explain how the game works.
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Oct 23, 2014 14:02
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