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bunnielab posted:
You shouldn't feel too bad. The Designer's Edition is a neat bit of nonsense, but it's so big as to be truly unwieldy. The pocket edition is really just better. I wish there were something in between... like if they hadn't gotten so carried away with the DE, there's a great hypothetical fancy, but not gigantic, Ogre.
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Jan 29, 2015 20:38
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Yeah, I've been wondering how much OGRE DE stuff I could fit into say the Lords of Waterdeep box - hoping to have enough counters for the basic Ogre/Breakthrough/Raid scenarios and those maps. The tray I'd use is a bit bad at sharing the space, so maybe many small bags would be better.
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Jan 29, 2015 21:28
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Making a lean kit like that is a great idea, I should do that.
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Jan 29, 2015 22:22
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COOL CORN posted:VASL? It's literally just a board and pieces, you have to provide the rules and scenario cards and enforce the rules yourself. Yeah, I guess my question was more about how user friendly the interface is. I have little hope of getting anyone I know to play with me so being able to play online is key. Wikipedia Brown posted:You shouldn't feel too bad. The Designer's Edition is a neat bit of nonsense, but it's so big as to be truly unwieldy. The pocket edition is really just better. I know, but I still want the silly thing and would happily pay $100 but double that is too much unless I actually had people and a place to play it.
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Jan 29, 2015 23:19
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bunnielab posted:Yeah, I guess my question was more about how user friendly the interface is. I have little hope of getting anyone I know to play with me so being able to play online is key. For wargamers who might be used to things like Harpoon, it's pretty straight forward. If you've played modern strategy games, it's not great in comparison. And I don't mean stuff like Paradox's stable or Dominions. For what it's worth, my dad played Panzer leader/blitz and Arab Israeli wars with me when I was a kid, and I picked them up and enjoyed them a lot. It essentially boils down to the math around focusing your attack factor at whatever's in range, and the line of sight and complicating rules are pretty manageable. 1776 is probably more straight forward, since the setting and scale are pretty abstract. I also was a fan of Alexander, which is designed to play just one battle, but there's basically no terrain to worry about, and it has unit facing considerations which I thought were pretty interesting. Elephants!
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Jan 30, 2015 00:00
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bunnielab posted:I know, but I still want the silly thing and would happily pay $100 but double that is too much unless I actually had people and a place to play it. You ought to be able to find the DE for $100 or thereabouts, mine was $70 CAD a few months back (and eligible for free shipping! They're sold out now though). It's the Kickstarter version / extras that cost a bunch more. CSI has one for $120 with an included $10-$15 promo sheet (and are selling one on amazon for $200, so shop around  ), CLS games is selling one for $100 via BGG.edit: there's some in Toronto for $100 CAD (401 games), they only ship in Canada or local pickup though. rchandra fucked around with this message at 03:24 on Jan 30, 2015 |
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Jan 30, 2015 03:19
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rchandra posted:You ought to be able to find the DE for $100 or thereabouts, mine was $70 CAD a few months back (and eligible for free shipping! They're sold out now though). It's the Kickstarter version / extras that cost a bunch more. CSI has one for $120 with an included $10-$15 promo sheet (and are selling one on amazon for $200, so shop around Yeah I bought both the DE edition of Ogre and the pocket edition from Coolstuff during their black friday sale where I got it for like 90 bucks
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Jan 30, 2015 13:41
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Tekopo posted:It's more complex than Fading Glory, but most of its complexity is chrome rather than actually difficult rules. I think it is a very good step up and I recommend it: it's pretty unusual due to the scale of the game but the firing rules and the way it uses support weapon is very well done. I would recommend it as a good stepping stone to slightly more difficult hex'n'counter games. Thank you for the summary, it sounds like a game I would like. Unfortunately the copy I intended to buy was just a stock error and it wasn't actually there. 
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Jan 30, 2015 17:06
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So after counting components and having a brief freak out that I was missing cards (who numbers cards sequentially, but then arbitrarily doesn't include numbers like 8 or 48???) and reading the rules, I think I'm ready to start my first game of Ambush! tonight. Is there anything I should keep in mind? Easy things to mess up? I'm not super experienced with war games--I've played Combat Commander, Twilight Struggle, Fire in the Lake, etc. mostly. So nothing this old yet.
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Jan 30, 2015 20:02
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How the hell is it that ASLSK #1 and #3 I can find almost everywhere for ~$30, but #2 is hard as poo poo to find for less than $70+?? Ugh.
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Feb 1, 2015 07:07
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Can someone give me a rundown or comparison between Band of Brothers, Conflict of Heroes, and Combat Commander: Europe? Am I mistaken in thinking they cover similar ground? I have CC:E, and enjoy it a lot, but I don't know very much about the other two, and they seem kind of interesting.
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Feb 2, 2015 05:22
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COOL CORN posted:How the hell is it that ASLSK #1 and #3 I can find almost everywhere for ~$30, but #2 is hard as poo poo to find for less than $70+?? Ugh. When wargames go OOP they go OOP hard. Also how the gently caress does a FLGS carry on their shelves loving Next War: Taiwan. That poo poo is dangerous to leave lying around. Some wargaming addict with no sense of boundaries or restraint might impulse by it when he really shouldn't....those fuckers.
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Feb 2, 2015 11:38
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Trynant posted:Also how the gently caress does a FLGS carry on their shelves loving Next War: Taiwan. That poo poo is dangerous to leave lying around. Some wargaming addict with no sense of boundaries or restraint might impulse by it when he really shouldn't....those fuckers. If you want to learn that poo poo on vassal i'm game.
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Feb 2, 2015 11:48
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Panzeh posted:If you want to learn that poo poo on vassal i'm game. I still have Next War: Korea sitting on my shelf waiting for a play; so yes, yes we should do this (god I hope one of us can read rules well though). EDIT: O gently caress, you can link the two games together. gently caress it, we're doing this panzeh. Trynant fucked around with this message at 12:04 on Feb 2, 2015 |
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Feb 2, 2015 11:56
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A Strange Aeon posted:Can someone give me a rundown or comparison between Band of Brothers, Conflict of Heroes, and Combat Commander: Europe? Am I mistaken in thinking they cover similar ground? I have CC:E, and enjoy it a lot, but I don't know very much about the other two, and they seem kind of interesting. Combat Commander is basically game that takes Overall Conflict of Heroes and Band of Brothers are far more comparable to each other. Band of Brothers is probably the easiest of all three, Conflict of Heroes is probably the one you could convince someone who isn't super wargamey to play, and Combat Commander: Europe is the most "hey this poo poo is good dawg" one.
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Feb 2, 2015 12:00
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Thanks to eBay I have the 1st ed. ASL rules en route to me for $8. It begins... 
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Feb 2, 2015 16:25
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I got VASSEL up and running last night and holy poo poo. The ASL module seems decent but the Panzer Leader one is amazing, all the scenarios have been prebuilt and are ready to play in seconds. I also grabbed the one for OGRE as well. If anyone want to get a game in let me know. I would like to start with OGRE but if you are willing to let me stumble through ASLSK or Panzer Leader I would love to play them as well.
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Feb 2, 2015 17:21
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Please have a look at my latest LP!
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Feb 2, 2015 17:58
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Found this cool book at Half-Price Books: Table of Contents:  And there's like 130 pages of reviews in alphabetical order, from "After the Holocaust" to "World War 3". I wish each game that got reviewed was in a list somewhere, but if anyone's interested in a review of a war game from Spring 1980 or before, I can see if it's in the book and type it up. It amazes me the hobby was robust enough to support such a dedicated niche title.
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Feb 3, 2015 02:21
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Part 1 was Culture before Culture. Do they have a review for Stalingrad? If not, Victory in the Pacific
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Feb 3, 2015 02:40
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Jobbo_Fett posted:Part 1 was Culture before Culture. The about the author is timely: "Nicholas Palmer was born in 1950 and has been playing board wargames since he was fifteen. Britain's leading authority on this fast expanding hobby, he is the author of The Comprehensive Guide to Board Wargaming and wargames editor of Games & Puzzles. He lives in Basel, Switzerland with his parents and is head of Medical Department System Analysis in Ciba-Geigy Pharmaceuticals. He looks forward to 2015, when retirement will give him the chance to play Campaign for North Africa; in the meantime, he finds it hard to understand how anyone can be bored in a world with wargames." Hopefully he'll get his wish! Stalingrad (AH) Strategic, land, WW2, 2 players, 5-8 hours Not just Stalingrad but the whole Russian front from the German invasion, crudely but excitingly simulated by this classic. By today's standards an over-bland map and identikit units within each type: all German armour has attack and defence strengths 8, all Panzer gernadier units have 7-7, and so on. The game starts with a free Russian set-up, for which there are many theories, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's allegedly unbeatable "hyperdefence". The German player is then allowed to inspect the defences and deploy accordingly, distributing his forces between Finland (maximum 8 factors), Rumania and the main front. Play proceeds on standard lines, but Stalingrad stands out among the classics for its good strategic conception. Bashing away on all fronts is not a viable policy for the German, regardless of his tactical skill, and winter will test his deployment when he needs to have the remaining armour bunched together to knock out strong-points in the Soviet line. Careless players throw the Panzers about and regret it around February 1942. Victory conditions hinge on the capture of Leningrad, Stalingrad, and Moscow. One or two of these can often be achieved by splitting the Russian lines, but the Soviet player will nearly always win if he plays a defensive but tenacious game, even if his replacement rate is reduced for play balance as suggested by the rules. However, the German side is much easier to play well (in the first months after the game was published it was thought unbalanced to the Axis), and newcomers are advised to start with the historical replacement rate and gradually scale it down as their defensive play improves. Records of tournament and club play show that results are in practice almost evenly balanced, which shows how much better many wargamers are at aggressive strategy than cautious retreats. Victory in the Pacific / War at Sea (AH) Strategic, sea, WW2, 2 players, 1-2 hours (War at Sea), 3-4 hours (Victory in the Pacific) Not to be confused with War in the Pacific, possibly the most complex game in existence, these games are two of the simplest wargames available and excellent introductory fare to entice newcomers into the hobby. War at Sea effectively has 4 pages of rules; Victory has six pages. The basic concept is quickly told. The oceans are divided into areas (in Europe and the Atlantic for War at Sea), each with a certain point value for each side. There are 8 turns; on each, the first player (Allies in War at Sea, Japanese in Victory) deploys his fleet as he thinks fit, concentrating most ships in the more valuable areas. The second player does the same, trying to exploit gaps in the first player's dispositions, and ships placed in the same area now engage in combat until one side is sunk or driven back to port. The players collect points for area still in their control, and move to the next turn. There are a number of finesses built on this structure: airstrikes, submarines, convoys (in War at Sea), capture of ports and bases (Victory), taskforces (Victory), and other rules for extra flavour. Combat is resolved by a die rolling contest. One gets a certain number of shots per ship: a roll of 5 disables the target and a roll of 6 scores a hit. Disabling is defined as driving the target back to port, so comic scenes occur when badly damaged ships pray for disablement; I originally reviewed this as 'adding a fashionable fantasy touch with a "sprouts wings" spell', and this rule is certainly the most outrageous element in a pair of games with scanty claims to realism. Ships do have individual speed factors which determine their chances of reaching distant areas and of escaping from battle. Curiously, it is perfectly feasible to play these games as deadly serious contests of logic and mathematics, since the odds of each contest can be precisely estimated. The General has published some authoritative theses from this viewpoint, but most people enjoy the games for light relief and fast movement. Victory in the Pacific is the more complex and subtle of the two, and takes proportionately longer, but both games are very accurately described by AH's admirable introduction to War at Sea: "...a simple simulation game of World War 2 naval combat bordering on the abstract. It is a 'simulation' only in the broadest sense in that it is based loosely on certain historical facts and data. Yet, the scope of the game is such that it dismisses much attention to detail and, as such, it is not as realistic as a normal simulation or war game. The result is a highly playable and easy to learn game that is fun to play." One can't ask for more honesty in advertisement.
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Feb 3, 2015 03:41
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What does he have to say about Squad Leader?
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Feb 3, 2015 03:56
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THIS guy? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Palmer
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Feb 3, 2015 04:03
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http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamedesigner/5480/nicholas-palmer Sure looks like it.
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Feb 3, 2015 04:28
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silvergoose posted:http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamedesigner/5480/nicholas-palmer He's like... a boardgaming superhero or something Edit: Someone needs to play against him and curse him out "Palmer you son of a bitch, I read your book! Jobbo_Fett fucked around with this message at 04:32 on Feb 3, 2015 |
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Feb 3, 2015 04:29
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cenotaph posted:What does he have to say about Squad Leader? He reviews Squad Leader as well as Cross of Iron and Crescendo of Doom, and gets some help from two other people. Gonna try just taking a picture, since it's sort of time consuming to type 'em up.  Sorry it's a little dark, but should be readable if you blow it up.     That was much faster than me typing them up. I love the one guy saying he can see the game being popular for years. Little did he know...
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Feb 3, 2015 05:02
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He has reservations about SL's "colorful design approach." We've got ourselves the ur-grognard right here.
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Feb 3, 2015 05:31
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Oh hey, I've actually played with him, I think I played a COIN game with him, A Distant Plain IIRC.
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Feb 3, 2015 07:57
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It was weird because he voted for the war in Afghanistan as well.
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Feb 3, 2015 07:59
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Gotta get something new to simulate after a while.
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Feb 3, 2015 08:23
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Haha, he's running for office in my constituency this year as well (I will probably be voting for him because gently caress the tories). Small world.
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Feb 3, 2015 13:23
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MikeCrotch posted:Haha, he's running for office in my constituency this year as well (I will probably be voting for him because gently caress the tories). Small world. That's wild! Unrelated, but nobody ever talks about Tide Of Iron in this thread, how come? I only played it once but thought it was fun and felt like a war game. I'm still pretty new to this branch of the hobby though, so maybe I wouldn't have noticed the flaws. Also, I just got War of the Ring first edition in a trade, should I use the second edition rules? I don't know how necessary the upgrade kit is or if just playing with the rules in the box would be a bad experience.
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Feb 3, 2015 17:52
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A Strange Aeon posted:Also, I just got War of the Ring first edition in a trade, should I use the second edition rules? I don't know how necessary the upgrade kit is or if just playing with the rules in the box would be a bad experience. You'll want to use the second edition rules when you play. You'll probably also want to use some sort of reference; I recommend these. The Upgrade Kit is nice, but not necessary unless you get the expansion later, as there are not a lot of changes to the actual cards. The bottom of this post lists all the changes between the two editions, so you could just make up a little list of the changes to cards, or maybe make some inserts. Enjoy the game!
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Feb 3, 2015 19:47
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Are there any good solo wargames I could look for? Sad to say I don't know anyone around here who'd be up for a twenty+ hour game of anything...
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Feb 3, 2015 21:28
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corn in the bible posted:Are there any good solo wargames I could look for? Sad to say I don't know anyone around here who'd be up for a twenty+ hour game of anything... You're in luck, fellow Corn. There are a TON of solo games, and just as many 2p but solo-friendly games. For the latter, there are a ton of options, and most are printed on the box (e.g. GMT games have a "solitaire suitability" rating on the back of each game). Some personal favorites of mine are Unconditional Surrender, Advanced Squad Leader, A Victory Denied, Reds!, and any of the SCS or OCS series games (Afrika, Burma, Tunisia, Reluctant Enemies, Bastogne, etc.) For the former, a lot of companies are making purely solo games now. Some notable ones (I may have some of the names slightly off, this is from memory): Navajo Wars, The Hunters, B-17 Queen of the Skies, RAF: 1940 Battle Over Britain, Ambush!, Battle Hymn, most of the DVG games (Thunderbolt Apache Leader, U-Boat Leader, Hornet Leader, Phantom Leader, Field Commander Rommel, Field Commander Napoleon, Fleet Commander Nimitz)... The lists go on, but that's a start. If you're okay with thinking on both sides, any game without hidden information (e.g. cards or hidden units) can be played solo and for a lot of fun. If you want a little more surprise in your games, any of the designed-for-solo games above are great.
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Feb 3, 2015 21:36
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Ugh, all this ISIS business is really making me want to play/buy Labyrinth. I wish there were another Islamic Terrorism-themed wargame out there, because if I want to play an influence-based CDG, I'll just play Twilight Struggle.
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Feb 3, 2015 21:37
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corn in the bible posted:Are there any good solo wargames I could look for? Sad to say I don't know anyone around here who'd be up for a twenty+ hour game of anything... The Leader series (particularly Thunderbolt-Apache Leader) and Navajo Wars are probably the most-recommended ones here. D-Day at Omaha/Tarawa/Pileilu and Fields of Fire also seem good but more complex, and I haven't tried those personally. Thunderbolt-Apache has been great for me, I've also liked Cruel Necessity but not as much. COIN games are another option, they all support solo play via AI players.
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Feb 3, 2015 21:40
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rchandra posted:Fields of Fire If you're new-ish to wargames, I would stay the hell away from FOF. And I'm saying this as someone who desperately loves the game.
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Feb 3, 2015 21:48
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I would buy Navajo Wars right now if I had more money to spare, it looks rad as hell. Cruel Necessity is English Civil War, though? That's a cool period and one I've studied so that might be a good choice if you feel like it's good enough to recommend. How does the solitaire thing work, though? Are there rules for enemy unit movement or is it all card based? E: I'm relatively new to wargames, sorry 
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Feb 3, 2015 21:52
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corn in the bible posted:Are there any good solo wargames I could look for? Sad to say I don't know anyone around here who'd be up for a twenty+ hour game of anything... The COIN series has an excellent solitaire mode. (Also they're only like four hours at most.) COOL CORN posted:Ugh, all this ISIS business is really making me want to play/buy Labyrinth. I wish there were another Islamic Terrorism-themed wargame out there, because if I want to play an influence-based CDG, I'll just play Twilight Struggle. Funnily enough, I think I saw Ruhnke admitting on BGG that the Arab Spring and subsequent ISIS fiasco isn't accounted for at all in Labyrinth. (Also, the general impression I got from Tekopo and some others is that Labyrinth really isn't that great, especially considering that COIN took most of the good ideas.)
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