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rchandra posted:Whoo, now I need to clear off the games table, it's storing stuff from the house being painted. That can is good but do you think we could get an 8-Track tape for measurement instead? Jesus the US player got spanked really hard.
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Nov 22, 2014 21:55
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Yeeep, as I said, he kept his troops too close to the NVA. I think he lost around 10-12 units in the Easter Offensive alone. He was basically out. The ARVN got close because of his high patronage though, and the NVA got devastated economically and even though he had the troops, he didn't have enough resources to do anything between the 4 and 5 coups (he managed to get a high of 35 resources though).
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Nov 22, 2014 23:00
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Wow, NVA expanded a lot. Looks like a close game on all sides.
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Nov 22, 2014 23:04
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NVA lost a lot of bases in the last campaign and also lost a ton of resources which means even though they were close they went down to 5-6 points by the time the 5th coup came around. If they had the resources they could have pulled out a win though, with the amount of troops they had and low US presence. The ARVN was the only other serious contender to the win thanks to their high patronage. EDIT: Also we crushed the ARVN economically: they often went down to 0 aid due to the huge number of US losses and I was also doing a lot of sabotage of the LoCs. Tekopo fucked around with this message at 23:08 on Nov 22, 2014 |
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Nov 22, 2014 23:06
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Hey, which version of Kriegsspiel is better, the 1862 or 1824 version?
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Nov 23, 2014 07:34
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Smoking Crow posted:Hey, which version of Kriegsspiel is better, the 1862 or 1824 version?  Btw, if you like a modern, no dice game, play Napoleon's Triumph. Completely deterministic, no dice involved at all.
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Nov 23, 2014 08:14
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A small note about all that joking about my wrist pains; I went to an orthopedist today and got diagnosed with De Quervain's Tenosynovitis, a complicated way of saying "wrist area under thumb is hosed up and poo poo" from what I can tell. My splint looks like a shin guard: I have doubts I'm going to be doing much counter clipping for the next month  De Quervain's Tenosynovitis is also known as gamer's thumb. Welp. EDIT: I'd be more proud of this chain of events except this stupid diagnosis apparently has no known cause so no I didn't literally injure my wrist counter-clipping (entirely). Trynant fucked around with this message at 00:35 on Nov 25, 2014 |
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Nov 25, 2014 00:31
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You're like a PSA for counter clipping, wow. edit - oh welp
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Nov 25, 2014 00:36
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I've only bought wargames that come with clipped counters (Twilight Struggle, Fading Glory), otherwise I would probably be right there with you. edit: I played fading glory with my girlfriend and it was extremely her poo poo. I got bodied by Napoleon because I thought I could sit on objective hexes/LOC with all of my Prussian units while my English units got slaughtered at waterloo. Yas fucked around with this message at 05:46 on Nov 25, 2014 |
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Nov 25, 2014 05:42
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Has anybody heard much about or have opinions on Time of Crisis? It's set during the Roman civil wars and is a CDG deckbuilder. Normally deckbuilders bore me to tears, but the idea of having multiple ways to spend every card sounds super duper neato. Anyway, thoughts, opinions, tidbits?
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Nov 26, 2014 02:53
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So I've been on a huge Sengoku Jidai kick lately, between Extra History's ongoing series and Shalcar's Let's Play of Total War: Shogun 2. I already own and love Sekigahara, but I was wondering if the wargoons had any suggestions for other notable games in the period? I'd be particularly interested in any game that deals with the Ikko-ikki rebellion. And for that matter, I'm curious for recommendations on any non-European, non-US-focused wargames outside the COIN system.
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Nov 27, 2014 21:14
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The big ones I can think of are Multi-man Publishing's A Most Dangerous Time, and GMT's Samurai and Ran. VoodooXT fucked around with this message at 05:06 on Nov 28, 2014 |
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Nov 27, 2014 22:00
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Gutter Owl posted:So I've been on a huge Sengoku Jidai kick lately, between Extra History's ongoing series and Shalcar's Let's Play of Total War: Shogun 2. I already own and love Sekigahara, but I was wondering if the wargoons had any suggestions for other notable games in the period? I'd be particularly interested in any game that deals with the Ikko-ikki rebellion.
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Nov 27, 2014 22:01
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A couple people missed out the first Virgin Queen game, so I've gone and made another one.
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Nov 28, 2014 19:52
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Has anyone played Warfighter by Dan Verssen Games? I'm just curios how awesome $210 worth of cards can be...
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Nov 29, 2014 03:39
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Ropes4u posted:Has anyone played Warfighter by Dan Verssen Games? I got the base game a little while ago. I played a solo scenario but messed up the rules something fierce. Unfortunately, it comes off as sort of bleh so far. I want to try and rope a couple people at my Monday game night to give it a fair shake, though. The gimmick dice it comes with suck, though. The d10 especially is so close to just being literally round that it rolls forever. ThisIsNoZaku fucked around with this message at 06:39 on Nov 30, 2014 |
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Nov 30, 2014 06:12
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ThisIsNoZaku posted:I got the base game a little while ago. I played a solo scenario but messed up the rules something fierce. Unfortunately, it comes off as sort of bleh so far. Thank you. I think I will wait for Fields of Fire to get released.
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Nov 30, 2014 14:00
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It's not worth $210, but I played a few rounds of it with friends. It was a lot of fun, tense, and balanced. I didn't really feel like the dice were the cause of our losing the game, but bad choices somewhere along the way. Notably, it's probably the bad load out choices we made. The dice were a bit annoying, but we used a dice tray and it was fine.
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Nov 30, 2014 17:16
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I played a game of Cruel Necessity (the States of Siege game about the English Civil Wars) last week. It's a lot of fun, it felt pretty easy to survive but difficult to get a good victory. I barely escaped with a marginal victory, and had made a few rules errors so quite possibly should have had a marginal defeat. You have several armies bearing down on you, and several political tracks representing the influence of various factions like Monarchy, Catholicism, Puritanism, Irish nationalism, etc. Eash turn you draw a card, some disasters happen, and you have to use your limited number of actions to put out fires and improve your position. Sometimes you have a battle, but you don't get many choices there. There's a lot of dice rolling, enough that it feels you won't be screwed long-term by it - but try not to get into positions where short-term bad luck will kill you. Card luck might actually be more important, some of the events on the cards can be very helpful if they happen early. The deck is divided into three sections a la Twilight Struggle. Each card has some blurbs about the events of the wars, made for interesting reading - when I play it a few times maybe I'll have learned something  .
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Nov 30, 2014 18:17
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Just played a couple turns of A Victory Denied since I had a few hours to myself, and was really pleased with how elegant the command system is. Chain-activating units via the chit-pulling mechanic really works well and adds an element of chaos to the game that makes it feel more... war-like? I guess? Definitely recommended.
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Nov 30, 2014 23:33
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rchandra posted:I played a game of Cruel Necessity (the States of Siege game about the English Civil Wars) last week. It's a lot of fun, it felt pretty easy to survive but difficult to get a good victory. I barely escaped with a marginal victory, and had made a few rules errors so quite possibly should have had a marginal defeat. I've given a read to the rules, and watched a few videos. The optimal strategy to me seems to be letting the political tracks fall as they may, and focus on keeping armies as far away as possible. Am I wrong? Does the game try to make the player do better than that? Are the "Achievement" cards good enough that they make you try to get the tracks to the point you can get them?
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Nov 30, 2014 23:44
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Fat Samurai posted:I've given a read to the rules, and watched a few videos. The optimal strategy to me seems to be letting the political tracks fall as they may, and focus on keeping armies as far away as possible. Am I wrong? Does the game try to make the player do better than that? Are the "Achievement" cards good enough that they make you try to get the tracks to the point you can get them? This is more or less what I did, and leads to a defeat with no Achievements. I aimed a bit lower militarily and took a few Achievements and that put me right on the edge of Minor Victory, so to do better you need more achievements and/or a much better final placing on more tracks. The achievements are more achievable when they work together: say you have one wanting Parliament and Scotland "B" and another Parliament "A" Scotland "B" Puritanism "C", going for the second one will get you the first also; often they match better than that. The abilities on the Achievement cards themselves don't seem strong relative to their costs, you're seeking them out for score (and to help make a democracy rather than a dictatorship under Cromwell). Having a decent score in the deck changeovers would be useful too, there's a VP check each time that rewards/penalises you for doing well/poorly. When an event card gives you a bonus to a certain roll (say the Puritanism track), that creates an interesting decision since often you want to ignore it, but it might be the opportunity to work towards an achievement or even just stave off doom in advance. Checking the theoretical military-only approach: 5 points for fortresses 8 for crushing all armies (4 armies, each gives 1 for being pushed back and 1 for being Disordered) -9 for bad politics tracks (-15 is worst-case without losing, but -8 to -10 seems more realistic) 1 for defeating Deviltry marker Total 5, with 7 or fewer points being "Marginal Defeat" (to do worse than Marginal Defeat, you need to not make it to the end). +19 is the historical result, according to the rulebook. Maybe I'll try it again now before I get lost in Thunderbolt/Apache (punched that out yesterday). edit: tried going heavier into politics, but kept getting distracted by fires. Timing is very important for that, you want to not get screwed by cards lowering a track just as you set it up for an achievement. Like in Twilight Struggle, increased deck knowledge will help a lot. At the end of the game, any excess strength in your defenses is wasted, so you want let them go a bit by then. I got a slightly better score with what felt like much worse luck on the board and slightly better luck in the battles than my first game. If you can manage a bigger lead in the midgame, I saw some ways that can snowball. One other thing I noticed, some of the political tracks have sort of an inverted hump (a trough?) so if you work on them more earlier it'd be easier to keep them up. rchandra fucked around with this message at 07:39 on Dec 1, 2014 |
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Dec 1, 2014 00:52
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I'd like to give Unhappy King Charles another try at some point. I played it once like 3 years ago and haven't tried it again since. Any thoughts from anyone?
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Dec 2, 2014 12:32
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Brush up on the rules, it's got a few fiddly/chromey quirks. Also, IMO the endgame is kinda hosed up, in that OP cards have low value late game (to simulate war exhaustion) and Loyalists can just forget about harder-to-activate Parliamentarians and run around with their 1-strategy generals all over place converting spaces while Yakety Sax plays in background. I also vaguely remember New Model Army to be somehow tricky for Parliamentarians, but I can't really remember the details. Also, you're lucky for living in the UK, as it's a pain in the arse when cards refer to particular spaces, but their names are covered by PC markers. As an aside, is there some sort of CDG with good designer notes on We the People-style political system? It never really made sense for me, with isolation and stuff.
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Dec 2, 2014 12:48
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You mean the GO-system of having breathing holes or otherwise you lose influence? I can't really think of it from a historical standpoint on why it would be the case, to be honest.
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Dec 2, 2014 12:50
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COOL CORN posted:Just played a couple turns of A Victory Denied since I had a few hours to myself, and was really pleased with how elegant the command system is. Chain-activating units via the chit-pulling mechanic really works well and adds an element of chaos to the game that makes it feel more... war-like? I guess? I'd love to give it a go sometime. Tekopo posted:You mean the GO-system of having breathing holes or otherwise you lose influence? I can't really think of it from a historical standpoint on why it would be the case, to be honest. I think the point of that mechanic is to give the American armies something to do other than avoid battle.
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Dec 2, 2014 12:52
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I don't mind putting influence down, I just don't understand why there is the rule about having groups of influence having to be next to places with no influence in order to survive.
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Dec 2, 2014 13:07
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So I'm going to be getting to try Richard III sometime soon, my first block wargame after NT/GoG. Any thoughts? Fun musings?
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Dec 3, 2014 23:57
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silvergoose posted:So I'm going to be getting to try Richard III sometime soon, my first block wargame after NT/GoG. Any thoughts? Fun musings? Be sure to bring a horse.
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Dec 4, 2014 00:03
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Just played my first game of Navajo Wars, using the first shorter scenario. I won a minor victory but I also spent most of it thinking that I had no idea what I was doing. In theory I know the goal I'm aiming for, it's just difficult at times to see how to get there. Despite saying that I enjoyed it a lot and am looking forward to playing again. I was perhaps a little intimidated by it before actually playing.
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Dec 4, 2014 14:21
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I've only played the first scenario of Navajo Wars, but it's amazing how each VP card goes from "that doesn't seem so bad" when you first read it to "oh god that hurts" afterwards. Almost a tutorial in itself.
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Dec 4, 2014 16:51
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KomradeX posted:That can is good but do you think we could get an 8-Track tape for measurement instead?  The intro campaign seems pretty easy, it lasts 3 days but after 2 I'm just one point short of claiming the highest victory level. I did get kind of lucky day 1 though - I sent 5 aircraft against 4 battalions, overestimating their power. Destroyed 3.5 of them with moderate aircraft damage and very high pilot stress, some of those pilots couldn't fly again for a week. That's why we have spare pilots though! It reminds me a lot of Strike Commander (the 1991 Origin mercenary flightsim), in that I'm using 1 aircraft to destroy a lot of things and trying to stay under budget. However, a weapon is effectively used up once it's loaded, you can't keep it if you return home with it (in Strike Commander I'd sometimes carry an expensive weapon for insurance, but not fire it unless truly necessary). My only complaints about the game so far are presentation. All the pilots look the same, and there are often numbers on cards with no explanation or even iconography - on counters that's one thing, but on cards you have the space. The rulebook is pretty friendly, and they have so many nice aids on the board that that omission is really glaring. Aircraft cannons and costs are the worst, but after playing a mission or two you'll remember them. Your very first playthrough is a bit rough since you do so much planning before seeing how things work, but if you make a disastrous error due to that either retcon it or just restart.
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Dec 4, 2014 20:50
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One of the things I really wanted to do was an LP of TAL. I think it would be pretty sweet to have the goons take the part of the pilots.
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Dec 10, 2014 17:58
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How long does Maria take to play, with all new players?
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Dec 10, 2014 18:20
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taser rates posted:How long does Maria take to play, with all new players? 
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Dec 10, 2014 18:21
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Tekopo posted:Depends on how fast Austria gets crushed Pfft, well then. But yea, I ended up grabbing it recently and want to try and get it on the table in the near future. Is there anything to know ahead of time for a first playthrough?
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Dec 10, 2014 21:04
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Tekopo posted:One of the things I really wanted to do was an LP of TAL. I think it would be pretty sweet to have the goons take the part of the pilots. I'm thinking that would be best if the pilots can't talk to each other. One player (presumably the LP author) takes overall command and makes choices for outside the battle map, but the pilots buy their weapons (CO sets budget in maximum ordnance points per craft) and choose all tactics in game. Of course use random squad selection and get stuck with more drones than you can really afford, like my current game .
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Dec 11, 2014 08:04
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Due to supply issues (capitalism you were supposed to solve that dammit) I am starting my adventure with COIN games from Fire in the Lake this Saturday. CONS: it's said to be the most complex and strangest COIN thus far, and allegedly it's not good to start with it PROS: I communicate mostly in Apocalypse Now references I've read the Cuba Libre LP, and I've fooled around with the VASSAL beta of Andean Abyss (but never got around to playing it, just browsing the manual and event cards), and I wish to know: how to make the most of it?
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Dec 11, 2014 21:43
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Tevery Best posted:Due to supply issues (capitalism you were supposed to solve that dammit) I am starting my adventure with COIN games from Fire in the Lake this Saturday. FITL is the most complicated of the COIN games. Do you have other people interested in the game or are you just gonna throw it out and see if someone likes it? I'd definitely recommend playing it solitaire once or twice to get a grasp on it.
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Dec 11, 2014 21:45
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StashAugustine posted:FITL is the most complicated of the COIN games. Do you have other people interested in the game or are you just gonna throw it out and see if someone likes it? I'd definitely recommend playing it solitaire once or twice to get a grasp on it. This for sure. I still play it solitaire and find myself missing a rule now and then, and I'm like 5+ games in.
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Dec 11, 2014 21:47
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