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I dunno, Andean Abyss isn't totally straightforward. Weirdly, it could go in solitaire as easily as multiplayer..
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Aug 10, 2013 07:24
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I've been playing a couple of medium-weight GMT hex-and-counter games lately. Infidel is one of them. It's in GMT's Men of Iron series, covering battles of the the first through third crusades. The ruleset is pretty interesting. One player is given the a first, free activation dependent on the scenario, and from there, players have to roll to activate commanders and their associated units. The inactive player has the choice of waiting for the active player to fail an activation roll, or to try to "seize continuity" with one of their commanders- whether or not a roll succeeds depends on the quality of the commander being activated. Combat is pretty straightforward, generally resolved by a d10 roll modified by the type of troops involved, quality of the troops involved (written on the counter), and a few other factors. Heavy cav and knights can do charges from afar, knights can be provoked into charging by missile attacks, and there are a few other interesting twists which make for a pretty dynamic battlefield. I recently played the Battle of Antioch as the Fatimids (green counters), with my wife as the Crusaders (blue counters), which highlighted some interesting aspects of the game. The battle starts with troops almost entirely undeployed- the crusaders have to sally out of Antioch onto the field, occupied by Fatimid skirmishers and cavalry, while the Fatimid general Kerbogha gets his fractious troops together and tries to deploy them against the crusaders. Here's the field a couple of activations after the scenario start:  On the left, Turcoman light cav archers block the road from Antioch while Duqaq's Damascan heavy cavalry (green stripes) prepare to charge Hugh of Vermandois' Flemish (red stripes) knights, archers, and men at arms (in this case, dismounted knights- the crusader's horses hadn't fared well). Godfrey of Bouillon (blue stripes) prepares to exit the Antioch gates onto the field with his troops. I get a couple of good activation rolls for the Muslim army and manage to control the field for the time being:  Although Duqaq's charge didn't work out as well as it could have (the "d"s in the yellow diamonds indicate disorganised troops- Duqaq's heavy cav charge has broken on Hugh's knights and men-at-arms- crusader heavy units are TOUGH), I get a couple of good activation rolls and think I'm being clever by bringing Soliman's Syrian light and medium cav (light brown stripes) on from their entry point near Antioch's gate (marked E above the gate) to block Godfrey's entry. The crusaders get the next few activations and I find out just how dumb an idea that was:  Godfrey's troops have utterly crushed Soliman's cavalry command and are moving to deal with Duqaq's heavy cav who are still in a good position to threaten Hugh's troops. Godfrey himself charges into Duqaq's unit to relieve Hugh of his badly flanked position. Kerbogha has managed to get Qaradja of Harran (blue stripes) on the field, but Qaradja is nowhere near in position to get involved in the melee. Duqaq is killed by Hugh's charge, but I get lucky, as Godfrey gets carried away in his efforts to rescue Hugh as continuity passes to the Fatimids:  Duqaq's replacement (Repl) manages to kill Godfrey, but the Muslim army is extremely shaky- you lose in Infidel when your army flees the field as a result of retired and destroyed units, killed leaders, etc, and the loss of Soliman's cavalry and Duqaq has put me on my back heel. All the same, the crusaders aren't doing too well either, having lost a number of high value units. Figuring I'll pull Duqaq's heavy cavalry back and let Kerbogha's main army fight it out, I spend my next few activations bringing the Fatimids on in good order. This turns out to be a critical waste of time, as the crusaders are able to bring on Adhemar of Lepuy and finish off the remnants of Soliman's command, forcing me dangerously near my flight level. I try to end things by rallying Duqaq's heavy infantry and going after Hugh:  This manages to force a draw- both armies break off on the same activation due to losses. Much like the historical outcome, Kerbogha's army shamefully retreats from the field having mostly not seen any action at all. I really enjoy this system, it creates a lot of fluid situations with interesting choices (should I try to bring up my main army or press the attack with these cavalry? How many guys can the Crusaders get out of Antioch if I don't contest the area around the gates? etc), the scenarios are pretty varied, the armies play really differently (Seljuk armies rely almost totally on cavalry archers, Fatimids are more straightforward brawlers, Crusader knights are insane death machines that can blow holes through 4-counter deep light cav formations if you let them, etc). I have some criticisms of the way the activation system works, but generally speaking I think if you're interested in this period at all this game owns bones and is worth checking out.
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Aug 10, 2013 08:46
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Panzeh posted:Most of the tough stuff in that game is centered on the government player, who, with a good reading of the playbook and Propaganda phase rules can infer what they need to be doing, I think. The insurgent factions are fairly easy to play. Depends who you're playing with, I guess. The insurgent factions aren't as tricky as the gov't, but it's not the kind of game where there's an obviously superior action at any given moment, and it's mechanically complex enough that I wouldn't describe it as "dead simple"- 1812, sure, but not AA. Probably intermediate weight is a good description. KomradeX posted:My one problem with GMT is that their rules tend to be very tedious, and confusing or maybe that's just the TS rules. It took me and 3 other people reading the rules to parse it out and even then I still end up in arguments about how scoring works in the game. I'm under the impression that if you have domination, you don't get the points for having presence since, well you need that to have domination, but if your opponent has presence that gets subtracted from the total VP gain? I'm surprised to hear this, GMT generally has some of the best-written and best-edited rules on the market. They also tend to keep up with living rules on their website, have reasonable FAQs/errata, etc. The TS rules are pretty straightforward- you score whatever level of control you have in that region (you score EITHER presence OR domination OR control), plus bonuses for superpower adjacency and battlegrounds. The scoring marker moves the difference between the two players' scores. KomradeX posted:What is the general opinion on Lock n' Load games? I've been thinking about picking up a few of them since they seem really cool, especially World at War which reminds of the video game Wargame:European Escalation and Airland Battle. Though it looks like their hosting is down If you have trouble with GMT rules, you're not going to like the Lock n' Load rules. I have Forgotten Heroes and it's never been on the table because the rulebook is terrrriibbly written. I feel like there's a good game in there, I just don't have the patience to work through the chummy conversational rulebook and figure out how to play. Then again, some people like that style. I prefer my rules pretty procedural.
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Aug 10, 2013 16:30
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well I guess that ones for the TG as an industry thread.
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KomradeX posted:How are GMTs COIN series of games, I really want to get Fire In the Lake and Cuba Libre? AA is really, really, really nice. When I first got it my group had it on the table weekly for about 3 months before we burnt out on it, and the only reason we haven't gone back to it more recently is because I'm generally drawing 5 and 6 for games night these days. For me the best thing about it is that it's one of the few wargames that actually takes its subject matter seriously enough to state its biases up front, gives you all the sources that were used, etc- it's not quite a PhD thesis, but it's the closest thing I've seen to an academic treatment of a conflict in boardgame form (amazingly, it's still fun). The contrast with Labryrinth couldn't be starker: Lab is probably the most absurdly childlike treatment of Islamic terrorism this side of JihadWatch, AA engages with and synthesizes Marxist treatments of FARC's program, products of American right wing think tanks, the memoirs of Colombian officials, etc. The game really never lets you forget that there aren't any good guys- I don't think I'll forget the first time I played gov't, turned to the AUC player and offered to fund his death squad attacks, and the next card to come up had a photo of AUC victims floating in a pond- it was like a punch in the gut. It really drives home how brutal that conflict was. The system itself is really elegant and a lot of basic concepts associated with state and non-state actors that aren't explicit in the rules end up getting expressed in gameplay, which is great. The biggest criticism I have of it is that scoring drives player behaviour maybe a little more than it should- because "Propaganda Cards", which check victory conditions and potentially end the game, are salted randomly through the deck, I often found myself taking actions that made sense in terms of scoring but were kind of silly in terms of a military campaign. It can sometimes feel like you're not really stringing operations together in some kind of coherent strategy but just cranking levers attached to other players' scores. I think I actually planned to try not checking for victory on the first and third cards as a variant, or something like that, but I never got around to it. Another thing I'm not totally on board with is that the population are pretty much part of the "terrain"- that's I guess standard American COIN doctrine, but it's sort of bizarre that the population in the game just kind of lay there as waves of terrorism wash over them, responding totally predictably the entire time. Come to think of it the events in the cards do mitigate this, and I don't know that there were many relocations of population in Colombia, but how do you do the strategic hamlet strategy of Vietnam? I don't know how that will be handled. As far as the other games in the series, I don't know much about them. I was looking at A Distant Plain and it looks like Ruhnke is constitutionally incapable of dealing with conflicts involving Muslims with anything approaching the same level of curiousity and sensitivity that he portrayed the Colombian conflict with in AA, so I'm steering clear of that. Not sure if he'll be able to do Vietnam without rah-rahing for the Americans, frankly. AA's greatest strength for me was the portrayal of the dirtiness of counterinsurgency- the gov't will get funded by drug lords to stomp ex-ally death squads while cutting a deal with their ostensible communist enemies, etc. It's not clear to me that the other games are going to have that sense, but we'll see I guess. KomradeX posted:Hmm, it might be tough but I'm willing to attempt to tough it out. Cause I just love the concept of Cold War gone hot scenarios. Are there any games like that on an operational level? Since as much as World at War intrigues me, I don't really care for tactical level. LNL is pretty much the only game in town for cold-war-gone-hot these days. As chrisoya mentioned, they have the Corps Command series at an operational level. Otherwise your choices are pretty much old SPI and GDW titles. There are VASSAL modules for games like The Third World War, but if you want physical copies of that stuff you're pretty much SOL unless you're willing to pay collector's prices on Ebay. Tekopo posted:COIN is pretty drat awesome but currently the only one out (Andean Abyss) takes quite a long time to play. You also need to find 4 people willing to go through with it which is a struggle (i've only ever gotten it out once). Also I didn't find this to be true- the "AI player" sheets (basically algorithms to play the insurgent factions) actually work decently well. I've started games with just Govt vs FARC played as human, AUC and Cartels run as algos, had people drop in to fill the AUC/Cartels slots for a few hours, and drop back out, and it worked fine. You can also split the factions so one player plays Gov't + AUC, and the other plays FARC + Cartels- this works, but it's confusing to play. In any case, AA is excellent with 4 but it's decent with 3 and workable with 2, IMO. Paper Mac fucked around with this message at 08:54 on Aug 11, 2013 |
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Aug 11, 2013 05:11
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The AA AI reliably beelines for their victory conditions and generally deals with the cards pretty well. The major change to diplomacy is automating the Cartels, as they no longer use their warchest to fund other factions, but I didn't find that it made a 3-player game much less interesting to automate either Cartels or AUC (the first time we did it we actually had an AI cartel win because the 3 humans couldn't agree on a ceasefire to tackle them  ).I have a pretty good group going but to the extent they're interested in wargames it's the big multiplayer games like 1812, AA, Maria. I have a couple of white elephants that are never going to get on the table (OCS: Burma and Elusive Victory come to mind) with these guys- I should probably learn how to use VASSAL and find opponents for these online at some point. Paper Mac fucked around with this message at 21:36 on Aug 11, 2013 |
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Aug 11, 2013 21:33
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Anyone played Empire of the Sun? I think if I go for another CDG I'd like to try something different, the CDG-driving-hex-and-counter concept seems really interesting.The End posted:Having recently just listened to Dan Carlin's podcast on the Spanish-American war, I'm all fired up to find a good wargame that is set during the period (either Spain v America, Spain v Guerillas or the follow up conflict of America v Phillipines) any suggestions? There's very, very little out there on any of these topics. Bolos and Krags has been "coming out soon!" for years now, but if it ever does get published it'll probably be the only thing in print on any of these conflicts, as far as I know. Paper Mac fucked around with this message at 04:52 on Aug 12, 2013 |
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Aug 12, 2013 04:40
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The General posted:Give me a wargame with elves and poo poo Done. blackmongoose posted:It's a good game, but extremely complex. Keeping track of all the air zones of influence, the ranges of all your opponents ships, the reaction possibilities for each attack, and so forth adds a lot of mental work to each turn. If you don't mind that, there's a good solid game in there, but both players need to be on top of the rules and focused for it to work well. I definitely think it's a multi-session game, as it can get quite mentally exhausting. Thanks for the heads up, I should read the rules more closely. The counter density looked pretty low, so I wasn't expecting it to be a big mental load. I should watch calandale's playthrough on BGG, maybe.
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Aug 12, 2013 09:01
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Pierzak posted:Also, recommend some good SF wargames? gently caress the past, the future is where it's at Space Empires 4x seems to be getting good reviews, although I haven't played it, definitely be interested to hear from anyone who has. There's lots of SF stuff available, though, depending on what you're interested in. At one point I was trying to convince myself that I had the time and energy to learn Attack Vector: Tactical, which models Atomic Rockets/Winchell Chung compliant torchships flying around in 3d with full vector movement and shooting at each other with physically-possible weapons 
Paper Mac fucked around with this message at 10:41 on Aug 12, 2013 |
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Aug 12, 2013 10:38
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Tekopo posted:I've made a death pact with a fellow board gamer. If I play The Blitzkrieg Legend with him this weekend he'll play None But Heroes with me at a later date. Wish me luck! I've never played either before. OCS is a really, really nice ruleset. It took me a couple of days to learn it but it's got the best supply system of any game I've ever seen.
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Aug 13, 2013 01:00
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Have they announced a retail price for Ogre? I'm glad I got in on the kickstarter as after seeing pics I'm not sure how they could sell it for less than $120 or so.
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Aug 13, 2013 05:12
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That looks cool, how does combat resolution work? Can Soviet armor leave the road at all?Colon V posted:I'm not even sure if buying it would be worth it. Anyone you could convince to play OGRE probably already has it. I don't know anyone who owns it, actually, which is why I went in on the kickstarter. I think it's likely much more common among American grogs than elsewhere. Paper Mac fucked around with this message at 19:37 on Aug 13, 2013 |
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Aug 13, 2013 19:34
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Lichtenstein posted:I'd like to take this occasion to remind/enlighten everyone about this... thing on BGG. This makes me feel a lot less crazy for spending a couple days learning OCS.
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Aug 14, 2013 07:29
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Quad posted:Now, I have Hearts of Iron 3, but it seems inpenetrably complicated, and I want something to ease me in. Would buying a classic like Tactics 2 be a good bet for a beginner? It looks like the most "traditional" wargame possible. I don't know that there are too many "beginner" wargames that are going to help you play HoI3, if what you want is something that deals with strategic-scale unit movement, production, research, etc. There are lots of games like that, though, and if you're willing to give something like Europe Engulfed a go, it might make HoI3 a bit easier. Edit: I just remembered Victory in the Pacific.. long ago out of print but if you're into classic wargames anyway, that's a lighter strategic one relevant to HoI3. Paper Mac fucked around with this message at 04:05 on Aug 15, 2013 |
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Aug 15, 2013 04:02
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 Played this tonight w/ my wife. It's the 2nd volume of the Flying Colors series. The 1st deals with big Age of Sail slugfests (Trafalgar etc), this iteration focuses on frigates and gunboats and some of the more marginal conflicts of the AoS that I frankly find just as interesting- the main campaign is the Great Lakes actions in the war of 1812. I've stayed away from Age of Sail wargames generally because they tend to be extremely detailed and complex (1 player per ship and a few referees to keep things moving is not unheard of). Flying Colors aims to get a big fleet action like Trafalgar playable in a day, with the smaller actions represented in SotS playable in an hour or two (there is even a series of special 1v1 "duel" system in this volume, using special cards to add a bit more detail, that are playable in 15-30 min), so it's right up my alley. Tonight we went for the Battle of Lissa, an action where a mixed French/Venetian frigate squadron jumped a smaller British raiding column in the Adriatic during the Napoleonic wars. The French fleet under Dubordieu attempted to pull a small-scale Nelson-at-Trafalgar on the British squadron under Hoste. Unfortunately for them, Hoste was one of Nelson's boys, and packing a howitzer on his flagship to boot, so things went south pretty quickly for the French, who ended up mostly burning, grounded, or fleeing, having inflicted no meaningful damage on the English at all. I hoped to do a little bit better as the French. Here's the setup:  The four Brit frigates are beating into the wind toward the top right, while the mixed French/Venetian fleet, with the weather gauge and reaching downwind, advance in two columns. Because of the setup, I'm kind of stuck with the general layout of the French plan- usually I prefer as the French to loiter downwind putting holes in English rigging and then running away rather than doing balls-out attacks, mostly because British ships are terrifying in close-in knife fights. The first three ships in that column are absolutely loaded down with these:  Carronades. Those three ships each put out, at close range, triple the carronade firepower of each of my French frigates (easily a third to half the weight of my longgun broadsides), and the Venetians aren't armed with any at all. I have no plan whatsoever for dealing with this, but then, neither did Dubordieu, so I decide to throw caution to the wind and press the attack. Here's where we are after the first turn:  Amphion has fired its grapeshot-filled howitzer across the deck of Favorite, killing all of Dubordieu's marines, preventing him from boarding anyone, and putting some minor damage in the hull. Danae, leading the left French column, takes fire from Volage and Cerberus, resulting in some minor hull and rigging damage. I manage to kill some marines aboard Active, but poor rolls prevent my first, extra-heavy broadsides from doing much anything else. On the start of the 2nd turn, the Brit line sails placidly forward, and the Active gets solid hits on Favorite, starting a fire and putting some serious holes in the hull. Dubordieu is committed at this point, so the Favorite, ablaze, attempts to cross-the-T to Active's stern. Active evades, so Favorite fires her port broadside down Active's rake line, and her starboard at Amphion's stern:  I roll very poorly for damage, merely killing the remainder of Active's marines and putting a few holes in Amphion's rigging, but I get insanely lucky checking for casaulties on Hoste and kill him outright aboard Amphion (you can see him wounded, moments before his death, crushed by a falling rigging spar, above). Dubordieu is in serious trouble if he doesn't get out of carronade range fast, so he sails on, but Amphion's crew takes it's revenge with a port broadside, and the burning Favorite takes massive damage, wrecking it (flipped to its damaged side with the yellow stripe, all damage capacity on that side filled) and putting it in imminent danger of sinking:  At this point I've written off Favorite, but with no commander, the Brits are going to have an extremely difficult time with command- on average only 1 ship will be firing each turn. I figure if I can roll a little bit better with Danae leading the left column, I might be able to put something out despite the loss of Dubordieu's flag:  I told you about those carronades, bro. Danae manages to rake both Cerberus and Volage, but crappy rolls mean this amounts to a few holes in the hull of the former and some dead marines on the latter. Cerberus and Volage, on the other hand, completely ruin Danae, flipping it and ensuring it will soon sink. At the end of the second turn, things are looking pretty grim for me:  The lead ships in both columns are now awash, Dubordieu has gone down with his flag (I forgot to transfer him  ), and I'm now relying on Flore and the lightly armed Venetians to take on the mostly-unscathed British column. They have no commander, however, which makes me hopeful I might pull off a draw after my fleet decides not to break despite the loss of the Fleet admiral and two ships.I get the initiative for the third turn and have the Venetian commodore, Paschaligo, aboard Corona, make the same attack as Danae, and he fares much better:  A bow rake on Cerberus severely damages it's hull and lights up a magazine, while a stern rake on Volage flips her to her damaged side. Neither of these ships will be of much use to the British any longer, but Corona takes hits sailing past the stricken Danae:  Fortunately, the 6th rate frigate Carolina manages to score some lucky hits, finishing off Cerberus and Volage. The Brits make a valiant attempt to tack through the wind to assist the badly mangled rear of their line, and manage to put enough lead on Corona to put her in real danger of sinking. At the end of the third turn, the Cerberus strikes its colours, the decks of the Volage are now awash, and Corona barely manages to keep her decks above water, while the hulks of Danae and Favorite drift off with the wind:  Both the Brits and French/Venetians now fail their break rolls, resulting in a draw- but the marginal victory, 10.5 points for 2 ships sunk, 1 damaged, and 1 fleet admiral killed, goes to the Brits, with the French coming in 2nd with their 7 points for 1 damaged ship (I didn't manage to capture the struck Cerberus before my fleet broke), 1 sunk, and 1 Fleet admiral killed. And yes, counter density
Paper Mac fucked around with this message at 06:22 on Aug 15, 2013 |
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Aug 15, 2013 06:13
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Tekopo posted:Those AARs are really interesting to read through Paper Mac so thanks for posting them! I've recently bought Iron & Oak and although it uses a simplified system I might make a solitaire run-through of it. I'm actually planning to do a couple of LPs in the future, one based on Guns of Gettysburg and one based on Iron & Oak, but they are still in the planning stage. Glad you enjoyed them. SotS is actually usually way more dynamic than the scenario I posted, since fleets usually set up in parallel battle lines rather than already on the attack, but you can see how attacks work from that, anyway. I'm really interested to see both Iron ad Oak and GoG. I&O looks like a really different approach to naval wargaming that I haven't thought about before. Speaking of Bowen games, I got Napoleon's Triumph on the table again recently and I think I'm finally starting to basically get what's going on. I really like the way it takes a few hours/turns to develop an attack properly. Looking forward to seeing how GoG works with many fewer blocks.
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Aug 15, 2013 20:44
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Those night turn rules are really cool, looking forward to the next update!
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Aug 16, 2013 01:45
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I think I like the positioning and movement in GoG better than NT. NT gets confusing as hell in small locales, particularly if a corps gets shattered and you have a couple of units in the approaches.Zombie #246 posted:Have you guys managed to play World in Flames? How is it?  one day...
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Aug 17, 2013 03:51
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blackmongoose posted:Why would you ever need a hex map of North America in a WWII game? Just for the Japanese west coast raids? Will those hexes in the great plains ever be touched by a counter? Don't even get me started on South America; not a single country there would have joined a war in that time period on the opposite side of the US. It's especially strange because it looks like they don't even bother with East Africa, which at least saw some actual fighting and could be especially useful if you're starting pre-1939 for the Italian invasion of Ethiopia (also solves Tekopo's problem of having nothing to do as Italy!) blackmongoose: monstergame vibeharsher
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Aug 17, 2013 15:14
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Ballsy FARC play, imo. Taking control of those cities prior to the prop card looks like it really knocked Gov't off its stride. Looking forward to seeing the outcome. What's happening with Gov't capabilities, anyway? Just no opportunities to take them or have those cards not been coming up? Looks like Govt really needs the discounts.
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Aug 18, 2013 20:09
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ConorT posted:Only 2 came up and I opted not to use them. Rough. Come to think of it, I don't think in the 9 or so plays my group has had of AA, we've had a Gov't victory. I don't know if that speaks to our failings or how difficult the gov't is to play compared to the insurgent factions.
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Aug 19, 2013 04:39
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Panzeh posted:I think the Cartels are probably the likeliest faction to win in any given game of AA because they tend not to intersect heavily with other factions' goals and don't give a crap about pop at all. Government is hard to play, especially against a FARC player that's being aggressive. I feel like FARC is difficult to play, but it's the second likeliest faction to be able to win a game, then AUC, then government. Yeah, I agree. The Cartels also can do basically everything they need to do with Rally, so there's rarely many hard choices with them. Panzeh posted:One of the interesting thing about the next-gen COIN games is that the government's role is separated between support and control, which makes them a lot easier to play, IMO. Not sure I know what you mean, the gov't has two scoring tracks?
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Aug 20, 2013 06:34
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I'm down.
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Aug 21, 2013 18:11
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Paper Mac posted:Does anyone know how hard/expensive it is to mount a couple of maps by hand? I have a few one-sided maps for wargames which I'll probably use enough to justify putting it on something that will avoid holes in the creases. Repostin in case any of you counter clippers have ever experienced strange mounting urges, gnomesane?
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Aug 23, 2013 02:46
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I've been looking for an OCS-lite for a long while. OCS is cool but it's complicated as hell and takes a long time to play. I just got a copy of Campaign Commander Vol II: Coral Sea. $40 for a weird looking Spanish game at an online retailer that I gave even odds of actually sending me anything. Wasn't too sure what to expect, but man this thing is a blast. Rules are written terribly, unfortunately- lots of errata and ambiguous. Mechanically this is the most interesting wargame I've played in ages, gonna do a AAR of a few rounds to show how it works.
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Aug 25, 2013 06:05
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The AA dice combat mechanics actually add a nice mechanical distinction between gov't (consistent, robust) and insurgent forces (inconsistent, relatively impotent, do well when they are lucky or numerous). As for kidnapping, it shouldn't really be a reliable income anyway.
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Aug 26, 2013 04:50
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How long does TK take to play?
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Aug 26, 2013 22:51
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thorsilver posted:OK wargamers, I have a weirdly specific question. I'm a long-time player of Battletech and Federation Commander/Star Fleet Battles, and consequently my favourite thing in the whole world is overly-complicated tactical games with individual record sheets for the units. Anybody have a tip on good naval wargames that fit this description? I'm tempted by things like Harpoon, Seekrieg, etc., where I can sit and simulate battles in ridiculous detail about real ships for once instead of off-brand Star Trek ships How big is your table? Serpents of the Seas is all on one mapsheet, uses 1 hex (.5"x.5" counters) units, mostly gunboats, frigates, etc. Flying Colors (vol I) does the big ships-of-the-line 2-hex (1"x.5" counter) units, on two mapsheets. Serpents has an additional 1v1 duel system, FC has an expansion you could get if you want. FC's system is descended partially from War Galley IIRC, so that may work for you as well. As far as being a good place to start, if you've played Battletech and SFB you shouldn't have trouble with the rules, that's for sure.
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Aug 27, 2013 12:42
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Era doesn't matter to me so much so long as I get that detailed simulation vibe.
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thorsilver posted:That's really helpful, thanks! I don't have a huge table, so SotS is probably better for me in that case. I'm curious about the dueling system too. Does that change any of the game systems in a significant way, or how does it work? It's pretty much a deck of cards with which you generate one-round buffs/debuffs/special conditions. Because most of the ships being modelled are mechanically pretty similar (move distances are determined by your relationship to the wind, with a bonus for smaller ships), the cards are necessary to add some tactical depth to the duels. There are different setups/objectives for the duels, sometimes they have 2 ships on a side, sometimes one ship is trying to escape, things like that. You can also use the card deck in the scenarios, but it'd make formation keeping more difficult. Basically it's there if you want another level of detail, I guess.
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Aug 28, 2013 05:20
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Lichtenstein posted:GMT difficulty levels relate to other wargames, not the board games for normal people. AFAIK they are submitted by the designer, so to the extent that GMT ratings for things are "calibrated", they're calibrated to that designer's judgement. They're not very useful descriptors.
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Aug 28, 2013 18:21
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Which older Ancients expansions are hard to get?
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Aug 28, 2013 18:41
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Jedit posted:I seem to recall that 2 and 3 are due for reprinting. Exp3 is the big problem because it has the stuff for Epic in it. I got 1, 2, and 3, and then built little boxes to house all the components in 2 boxes from some guys plans on BGG  I dont want to do that again so I havent bought any of the later ones  Here's the 1943 progress of the Solomons Campaign, after the Japanese had run out of steam and were being rolled up by the Allies in their island-hopping campaign:  That's pretty much exactly what happened to me the first time I played Coral Sea w/ my wife. The Japanese got bogged down attempting to supply a futile defense of Guadalcanal and couldn't do much to Papua New Guinea. Convinced that the Japanese position was very difficult, I decided to try again in a learning game against my friend. I got some early supply and reinforcement cards and stepped up my operational tempo as much as possible. I drew one of the 4 Sudden Death cards that can end the game before a player deck is exhausted- Yamamoto Ambushed, which the Japanese player can play, giving the Allies 4 bonus VP, added to VP for occupying victory locations and for particular events. It can only be triggered with the Allies in control of exactly two of Lae, Buna, Bougainville, and Guadalcanal. Here's the situation now:  Japanese SNLF are firmly in control of Lae and Port Moresby, having conducted naval assaults subsequently from the North and South coasts of PNG (avoiding noob-trap Kokoda Trail Redux). The (now-depleted) Australian brigade garrisoning the supplies at Port Moresby has been forcibly evicted by a pair of SNLF battalions. Having captured half the supplies present, the sizeable fleet from Rabaul floats serenely offshore, daring the Australian fleet (1 counter) to respond. I have dropped troops off on Bougainville, but need to provide more supply for them to take the island. Once I do so, I can play the Yamamoto Ambushed card, which will win the game. Rabaul is completely open and it is still possible that aggressive Allied play could turn this around, as they could respond by sending their sizeable American fleet at Noumea after Rabaul, which would immediately require me to recall my fleet from PNG and open Port Moresby to amphibious assault. The Allies have a surfeit of supply, and I have just enough to win before my advance utterly collapses.  This game is super good.
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Aug 28, 2013 20:42
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PROTOSTORM!!! posted:So I want to own a Hex rear end war game, but I don't have many people to play with. Outside of playing online options nothing beats just seating down and hashing it out, ya know? If you want the WW2 theme, I'd also check out Conflict of Heroes. Card play has effects at the margin but since its not fundamentally a CDG, you never really get stuck with a bum hand. Outside of WW2 there are many many light- and medium-weight wargames with some degree of card play or random events- the Command and Colors series is pretty popular, although you can get screwed with a bad hand in those games. Something like Strike of the Eagle might appeal as well- hidden information operational-level block game driven by card play, combat results are mostly determined by troop compositions present in the battle, cards played, some randomness from a random card draw. No hexes, tho. black metal hugbox posted:Anyone wanna learn OCS via Burma with me on Vassal? If you're willing to put up with a Vassal noob, I'll play the learning scenarios if you want. It's been ages since I looked at the OCS rules, tho.
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Sep 1, 2013 07:38
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Flying Colors is definitely a "being a commodore/admiral" ruleset, not a "being a captain" ruleset. If you care at all about the characteristics of particular sailplans or how many men are in the rigging, you want something else. e: Serpents of the Seas does have a dedicated 1v1 module but its more about cardplay than it is about detailed simulation of single ships. Paper Mac fucked around with this message at 16:06 on Sep 5, 2013 |
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Sep 5, 2013 15:24
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OK Coral Sea has got me agitated enough to review it, but before I do that I want to show how it works mechanically so I don't have to explain rules in a review. So here's a couple of turns of Coral Sea that I soloed to teach myself vassal and illustrate the basics of how the game works. The Coral Sea, 1942:  Rabaul has just fallen to the Japanese. They have made Rabaul their base in New Britain, from which to threaten Papau New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, and Australia.  The Japanese have a large fleet with a carrier group and four groups of heavy and light combat ships. They also have three battalions of the cream of the Japanese naval infantry, the SNLF, the IJA 144th regiment, and 3 Resource Points (RP), each fueling one turn of operations.  The Allies are doing far better for supplies, with 7 RP in total on the map. In Noumea (middle row) They have a slightly stronger American fleet than the Japanese at Rabaul, as well as the 7th regiment USMC. Australia (bottom row) has a single group of Australian heavy ships, and a bunch of line infantry brigades (Australian Army) and regiments (US Army), while Port Moresby (top row) is a sitting duck with a lone garrison brigade. The numbers printed next to the locations are victory points associated with those islands/urban areas. By default, everything outside New Britain, New Ireland, and New Hannover is in Allied control, those islands in Japanese- the Japanese player therefore starts with 11 VP in Rabaul and Kaiveng, the Allied with 29 (everything else). VP are also awarded for destroyed units (which is difficult to do, barring airstrikes on battered ships in port and attacking isolated units on islands). Each player has a deck of cards, game is over when one of the decks runs out or when one player plays one of their two Sudden Death cards, which immediately score the game given some conditions are met. Each player starts with a hand of 5 cards (maximum hand limit is also 5), and each turn chooses whether to use a card action (draw card, play card, or discard card for 1 supply) or to execute a map operation. You secretly chose which you want to do (either side of a chit hidden under your hand), and simultaneously reveal with your opponent. In case both players chose to do a card action, the player with strategic initiative (Japan initially, Allies later) does their action first, then the other player. If one player choses to execute a map operation and the other a card action, map goes first. If both players execute a map operation, they dice off with d10s, player with strategic initiative gets +2 and wins ties. The winning player acts on the map, the losing player does nothing. In any case, we need to look at the cards first to see what both sides are likely to do.  Let's look at the Japanese hand first. The blue card is a battle card, to be used as an interrupt in combat. We can ignore it for now. Of the other cards, we have one that gives us more supply, one that rebuilds some of my infantry, one that does an air attack someplace near an airbase or carrier (both at Rabaul right now), and one that moves land units around on coastlines without forcing them to slog through the jungle and become depleted and disorganised. Only the supply card is immediately relevant- can't hit anything with Air Attack right now, Replacements can't be used yet, and we're not in position to use Coastal Shipping to do anything interesting. Rabaul's got 3 RP (resource points), which is enough to supply a quick excursion, but to do anything meaningful we need to get more supply on the board, so let's decide to play that card first as the Japanese.  As for the Allies, we've got a crazy good hand here. The Allies have the Shoestring Sudden Death card, which allows them to end the game if they control Guadalcanal, Port Moresby, and ten cards have passed. This is a surefire American victory in short order if the Japanese don't quickly capture Guadalcanal or Port Moresby- the deadline the Japanese must cope with. Ten cards have not yet been played, though, and nothing is in range of any airbase or aircraft carrier, so the Air Attacks are out too. Air Transport requires that George C. Kenny is played, but we have George C Kenny, which allows Air Transport, Skip Bombing, and transforms Air Attack from a basic operation card to an interrupt used during Japanese operations. The Allied player could try to do some operations- building an airbase in Buna would take a couple of operations, but would allow the Allies to use Air Strike cards on Rabaul. GCK will make those Air Strikes more flexible and will get the Allies closer to the ten-card limit, however, so that seems like the best move here.  Both sides play their cards and apply the effects- 3 RP to Rabaul, GCK comes into effect and goes into the slot supplied for it on the map. The Japanese player now has lots of supplies. Looking at that George C. Kenney card, it seems the Allies may attempt to box the Japanese in at Rabaul. If they were able to build an airbase on New Georgia or in Buna, Allied airstrikes could hit Rabaul.. The Japanese player decides to move decisively to prevent the Allies from spending their Port Moresby supplies to send the garrison over the Kokoda trail and into Buna for airbase construction duty, and choses to do a map action. The Allied player wants to burn cards as quickly as possible. Getting through the deck will enable Allied Sudden Death card play, as well as potentially turning up reinforcement and supply cards, so the Allied player choses to draw a card. The operation chits are revealed for the second turn:  Since the Japanese player chose to execute an operation against the Allies' card, they play first. Let's look at what's in Rabaul again-  The Japanese want to move aggressively against the Australian brigade in Port Moresby before they can be reinforced. They will do so with the majority of the fleet- we'll leave a heavy ship (HS) group behind to do auxiliary transport tasks and keep an eye on Rabaul. We will need to spend one of the 6 RP to begin the operation, so we do that first, discarding the counter, putting down a Land Operation marker in Rabaul, and moveing the SP Avaiable marker up to 6:  Ok, so, let's send out some naval stacks. Each naval stack gets to carry 3 infantry. Stacking at sea is compulsory and free, but you can't end the operation with more than 3 troops per stack, so larger transport operations need a bit of care. Naval units can take as many supply counters with them as there are naval units in their stack. The Japanese send the main Rabaul Force, with the SNLF spear point and four RP, plenty to take care of Port Moresby and have some flexibility with the fleet along the way. It costs 2 SP to "fuel" a naval stack (give the naval counters therein their 6 Movement Factors), so we count those off and start moving our stack:  The Rabaul ship counters have 6 MF, but they're carrying ground units, so they're slowed to 4 MF by the transport ships they're escorting. It costs one MF per seazone moved, including one to leave port, so the Japanese fleet is able to advance four seazones, ending their movement for the operation off the south coast of New Guinea:  Alright, that's 2 of 6 SP spent for this operation. Back to Rabaul. With the remaining 4 SP, there are a couple of things the Japanese could do. The 144th could be marched south to build an airfield capable of supporting combats in the area with airstrikes, but if the Port Moresby invasion goes well, it won't be necessary for some time. The Japanese player instead decides to move on Bougainville with the 144th:  The Japanese paid 2 SP to mobilise a naval stack (the HS), giving it 4 MF, as it's taking infantry on board. The HS spends one MF entering the seazone east of Rabaul. The 144th disembarks (free, naval stacks may embark or disembark once per round, disembarking is free and embarking costs 2 MF. Naval stacks that start with infantry are considered embarked, so that allows us to immediately take the free disembark) on Bougainville. The HS spends another 1 MF to return to Rabaul, where it ends its movement stacked with the supply point. 2 SP remain- the Japanese could refuel the HS and send it out, but Rabaul must be guarded, so unfortunately 2 SP are lost as the operation ends. Because the Japanese are now disputing Bougainville, the 3 points for Bougainville will not be assigned to anyone if the game ends unless it is completely controlled by one or the other player. The Allies now get to perform a card action. Worried about Port Moresby, they draw a card, hoping for reinforcements:  That'll do- the Allies just played the first GCK card, and skip bombing will destroy Japanese supplies and deplete their troops aboard that inbound fleet. The red border means it can be played during the enemy operation as an interrupt. With troops on the move, the Japanese are very likely to attempt map play next turn- it will be wise to oppose with cards rather than map operations here. The third turn begins and the players chose their operation chits. The Japanese chose to play a map operation, the Allies a card action, so the Japanese begin by expending 1 RP on board Rabaul Force to supply this turn's operation. They place a Sea Supply marker in the seazone- SP at sea can be traced within the seazone the RP was burnt or by land units on any adjacent land areas. The Japanese give themselves 6 SP on their supply track, and spend 2 SP to fuel the fleet, giving it 4 MF (still laden with SNLF infantry). They begin moving- but are interrupted!  The Allies pay 1 RP from Port Moresby to hit Rabaul Force with bombers based there. Skip bombing doesn't do much to the fleet itself, depleting one light ship (LS) group (beige band), but it depletes all three SNLF, and, critically, destroys two of the three remaining RP. This fleet no longer has any flexibility at all, it can execute one operation beyond this one and then they're stranded. Nevertheless, having bought the movement factors to get to Port Moresby, the Japanese press on, spending a total of 3 MF to arrive off Port Moresby and disembarking the SNLF invasion force for free.  The Battle of Port Moresby begins:  The Japanese SNLF tactical value (the number to the right of the NATO symbol) is 2 when they're depleted, so the Japanese will draw 2 chits, while the American player's Australians draw only 1. The Japanese may chose which of two chits to play, while the Australians must play whatever they get. The Aussies and Japanese both secretly draw their chits. The Japanese, attacking, must play a chit first. They have Shore Bombardment, which causes an Allied Depletion check and will shut down the Allied airfield at Port Moresby, and Close Combat, which causes an allied Disorganisation check and a Japanese Depletion check. They pick Shore Bombardment, making good use of their offshore fleet, and not risking the troops. The Allies have drawn Air Strike as their single battle chit- they must play it. Chit effects are applied to the defender first. The Allied player rolls a 4 for the Shore Bombardment depletion check, passing it. However, as the Shore Bombardment chit negates the use of the bombarded airfield for the rest of the operation, the Air Strike chit has no effect on the Japanese.  The second round of combat begins. Players must empty their hand of battle chits before redrawing, so the Japanese must play their Close Combat chit. The Allies draw Assault. The Allied unit rolls a 6, failing the disorganisation check from Close Combat, take a DG marker, and flee Port Moresby into the jungle, becoming depleted as it does so. Half of the supplies are captured, half destroyed, but since there is only one Port Moresby RP remaining, the Allies avoid giving the Japanese additional supply for funding operations in the area. Now in control of Port Moresby, the Japanese have a tough choice- with one MF on their naval stack remaining, they could move one seazone back east, putting their fleet within 6 MF of Rabaul, ensuring that they will be able to return quickly. The alternative is to remain at Port Moresby, deterring an invasion from the weak Australian fleet, but risking a move on Rabaul itself by the American fleet and their Marines. Since new supplies enter at Rabaul, there is no sign of the Truk fleet, and we the SNLF can be brought back up to full strength with the Replacements card, it seems prudent to begin heading back. They finish moving their fleet, and with no one available to draw Naval supply from the original supply point, the operation is over, and the Allies may now play their card:  The Allies chose to play Air Attack on the Rabaul fleet before it leaves the Australian airbase range. The second LS is depleted, but the Japanese escape their invasion mostly unscathed, ending the turn steaming Southeast. For the fourth turn, the Japanese decide to loiter within Air Attack range of Australia in order to play cards while they wait and see what the Allied response will be to the invasion. The Americans want to drive the SNLF off from Port Moresby ASAP, as their presence their prevents the play of the Allied Sudden Death card. The Japanese chose card play, the Americans chose a map operation:  The Allies, playing first, sail from Noumea with the 7th Marines, moving 4 sea areas west to in an attempt to spook the Rabaul fleet into returning to Rabaul, allowing the Marines to land with Australian support. The Japanese play Coastal Shipping, moving the 144th two areas east, capturing Bougainville and giving the Allies something to think about in the Solomons. The Japanese are now dangerously overextended, but 3 SNLF battalions and replacements on the way to return them to full strength, it will be hard to dig them out of Port Moresby even if the Rabaul fleet leaves. It may take some time before the Allies can play that Sudden Death card, but they may not need to if they can take and hold Rabaul.. Paper Mac fucked around with this message at 01:47 on Sep 7, 2013 |
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Sep 7, 2013 01:39
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Tekopo posted:That sounds really interesting. Are the rules for the game online since I'd be interested in having a look at them. The publisher/developer has them on their website: http://bellica3g.com/index.php?page=shop.getfile&file_id=54&product_id=19&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=228&lang=en I actually found the rulebook to be the weakest part of the game. The rules aren't that complicated, but they're poorly organised and ambiguously written (translation problems from Spanish, probably). I half-learned to play from a marnaudo review and then picked up the rest from consimworld postings, actually. Once you know how to play the game, the rulebook is slightly more useful as a reference, but I found it really difficult to learn from. If you want to give it a shot on VASSAL sometime let me know.
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Sep 7, 2013 20:48
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Sounds good, does it look like it'll be a shorter play?
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Sep 9, 2013 17:59
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I think I'm most excited about the Vietnam one, the AA system has some huge advantages over traditional hex-and-counter for representing that conflict imo. But I bet that will be similar length or longer compared to AA and I don't know how much it'd get on the table.
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Sep 9, 2013 18:11
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I'm looking forward to the OCS:Korea reprint, but it's MMP, so "soon" could mean "2050". A las Barricadas!, a tactical hex and counter about the Spanish Civil War (with expansions adding the Rif war (!) and the international brigades, Condor legion, etc). It was on MMP's P500 equivalent but they dropped it, and Compass Games picked it up instead. Sounds like it should be reprinted over the next little while. e:  Niko Eskubi counters 
Paper Mac fucked around with this message at 20:39 on Sep 15, 2013 |
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Sep 15, 2013 20:36
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At least there are two sheets of stickers, one to stick on and realise the adhesive is crap, and one to glue on yourself..
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Sep 18, 2013 20:01
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| # ¿ May 2, 2024 21:38 |
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Perhaps you have not yet discovered the joy of the corner radius punch? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vN3KAH0GN5o
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Sep 19, 2013 18:51
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