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 Welcome to the Wargames Thread! Wargames? Man, I LOVE miniatures... Wait, wait, wait, not those kind of wargames. This thread is meant for traditional wargames, the ones that don't involve model soldiers and terrain, but instead use a good old hex map and some counters, although that is only one of the many genres that will be touched upon in this thread. If what you are searching for comes in a box, has more pieces than you can count and has a map, then you are probably in the right place. Although Avalon Hill are a shadow of their former self, wargaming (along with board gaming in general) is currently in a golden era: there is an unprecedented number of games available currently, of various complexity levels and featuring battles and wars from across the globe. There isn't a better time than now to get into the hobby!  It can be extremely daunting getting started within wargaming, both due to the high level of choice of games available as well as the fact that it can be difficult sometimes to find players for a particular game. As well as that, getting through the rules for a wargame is going to take a substantially longer effort than most standard board games. The length of some games is also an issue. Thus, if you absolutely want to get started with a wargame but are unsure at what to get to start off with, here's a couple of suggestions. First of all, 1812: The Invasion of Canada  This is a good beginner game that can be played by up to 5 players! The mechanisms for the game rely on dice for combat, but the game manages to bring some interesting concepts to the table, including having some troops qualitatively better than others, making movement possible in several different ways (marching/using boats to cross the lakes/etc), as well as hand management that is somewhat reminiscent of card driven strategy games. The game time is low and the game is interesting enough that it's likely even non-wargamers will enjoy it. Another good beginner game that is slightly more complex than the one above is the Command & Colours Series(Including Battle Lore, Battlecry, Battle for Westeros and Memoir '44)  There are many different types of Command & Colours games, featuring both real life and fictional wars. Most of them rely on you having a hand of cards: during your turn, you can play one card that actives a certain number of units, which can then move and fire as normal. Which units are activated depends on the cards, with Command & Colours: Ancient, Napoleonics and Memoir '44 allowing you activate a specific number of units in a specific flank. Hand management is therefore important, since if you ran out of cards for a specific flank and it becomes under threat, it will be difficult to reply to your opponent, modelling the chaos of battle and the difficulty of command and control. These games often come with modular boards with hexagonal, cardboard terrain that can be used to play a multitude of battles just by shuffling the terrain around. The last beginner recommendation is a bit more specific and is not truly a wargame: 1960: The Making of the President  1960 is a game about the Kennedy/Nixon Presidential Election. You might ask how this ties in with wargames, but 1960 shares a lot in common with a genre of wargames known as Card Driven Strategy Games (CDGs). This game is an easy introduction to the genre and has a lot of the things that make CDGs great: hand management and area control. If you want to get a leg up within the realm of CDGs and aren't sure of what you want to start with, this game is a good introduction within the genre.  There are many different genres within wargaming, I will touch upon the main ones here and provide some examples of beginner, intermediate and advanced games within each. Hex And Counter This is the old daddy of the wargaming scene: popularized by many of hex and counter games made during the 80s, this genre is still the ones many people think about when wargaming is mentioned. Hex And Counter games tend to be some of the more difficult wargames out there, but many current games published today focus more on play-ability rather than a nitty gritty focus on realism, although there is something here to cater to almost any taste. The genre is known as such for the use of cardboard counters to represent troops and almost exclusive use of hex maps. The two main sub-genres within Hex And Counter games are operational and tactical level games. Operational level games tend to have a wider focus: rather than simply modelling the fight for a single village or wood, operational games tend to show whole campaigns, thus requiring the modelling of supply chains. Tactical level games usually focus on single engagements between small sized formations, even going down to modelling the movements of single tanks or even single men. Beginner: Red Winter, Fading Glory (based on the Napoleonics 20 series of games), Conflict of Heroes, many of the Victory Point Games. Intermediate: No Retreat!, Combat Commander, A Victory Lost/Denied, Fighting Formations Advanced: Advanced Squad Leader Block Wargames My particular current darling, block wargames are just what they sound: games that use wooden blocks instead of cardboard counters in order to represent their troops. Wooden blocks (along with looking much more pretty), allowing to create more of a fog of war about the capabilities of your troops, since you don't have to reveal any information about your troops at all (excluding position, of course): although hex and counter games do have a similar fog of war when stacking chips, if units are spread out or there is a lower number of units available, most if not all of the information is on the table. As well as that, block wargames have created a sub-genre of completely diceless wargames, in which combat is resolved by comparing the strength of units, with randomization handled by you not knowing exactly what you will face. Beginner: Strike of Eagles, Hammer of the Scots Intermediate: Rommel in the Desert, Sekigahara Advanced: *Front Series (West Front/East Front/Etc), Napoleon's Triumph, Guns of Gettysburg Card Driven Games (CDGs): CDGs came out as a means of simplifying operational level games and have now become hugely popular. The main mechanism of the game is that each turn you are given a hand of cards, from which you alternatively play a card either for the event or for 'Operations' (which allow you, for example, to move troops/get new troops etc). The event allow the games to take the character of the war: instead of being fixed events within the game that have special rules, they are an integral part of the game and almost a resource that you have to decide if it's worth using. The deck of cards used in these games can vary from a single shared deck to individual decks per side. The maps for these types of games usually divide the playing area in different boxes rather than using the traditional hex maps. Although largely easier to play than hex and counter games, there are still games within this category that can take days to play a full game. Beginner: 1960: The Making of the President, Washington's War, 13 Days Intermediate: Sword of Rome, Twilight Struggle, Successors, Wilderness War Advanced: Pursuit of Glory, Paths of Glory, Empire of the Sun, We the People Solitaire Have no friends? This is the right genre for you! There are many games out there that can be played solitaire, without the need to find someone else to read the rules and work out how a game works! Usually the role of the enemy in solitaire games is handled by results tables or dice in order to model the unpredictability of the enemy. Systems within solitaire game can vary and depend largely on what is being attempted to be modeled/it's complexity. Beginner: States of Siege Series (By Victory Point Games), The Hunters, Silent Victory Intermediate: Thunderbolt/Apache Leader, Phantom Leader, Navajo Wars Advanced: Field Commander Series, Silent War Multiplayer Have loads of friends? This is the right genre for you! Most wargames tend to be designed for two players at most (although some attempt to replicate chain of commands, successfully or unsuccessfully, in order to allow more than two players to play). Multiplayer games in which there aren't two defined sides tend to involve a high degree of diplomacy. Beginner: 1812: The Invasion of Canada, Maria Intermediate: Sword of Rome, Successors, Diplomacy, Advanced: Here I stand, Virgin Queen Classics Yes, there is a space for the likes of Axis and Allies and Risk within this thread. What is there more to say? Some of the more commercial offerings are present within this particular genre, although they can still be fun to play! Sub-Categories COIN Melding together the genres of CDGs, block wargames and even Euros, COIN (Counter-Insurgency) games are the creation of Volko Ruhnke. The games handle asymmetrical warfare pretty well while representing large scale conflicts in simple, thematic ways. Most of them are 4P games and although bots can be used with lower players, they truly excel at that number. Beginner: Cuba Libre, Falling Sky Intermediate: Andean Abyss Advanced: A Distant Plain, Fire in the Lake, Liberty or Death OCS OCS (Operational Combat Series) is a operational level game which is currently one of the best system out there for big map games. The thing that really makes OCS stand out is that the game isn't so much about fighting your enemies, but being able to set up logistical lines of advance, with depots. Every time you move, you will use up supplies. Every time you attack or defend, you will also use up supplies and since you have to individually move the supplies up to your front lines, being able to set up depots and keep them defended becomes key. The rules can be hard to get into and the scale of the games can be intimidating, but fortunately there are smaller games that are easier to handle. Keep in mind that beginner games are quite advanced in of themselves! Beginner: Reluctant Enemies, Tunisia II Intermediate: Burma, Sicily II Advanced: Blitzkrieg Legend, Case Blue, Guderian's Blitzkrieg II Advanced Squad Leader If you ever wanted to model any given battle, in the entirety of World War 2, in excruciating detail at the tactical level, then ASL is for you! Each 1/2" counter either represents a single man (e.g. a leader), or a group of 3-5 men (a squad). There are also 5/8" counters for every single vehicle that existed in World War 2, as well as every single manned gun (e.g. German 8.8 cm "eighty-eight" guns, or British 40mm Bofors anti-air guns). And when I say that ANY battle is represented, there are well over 1000 ASL scenarios out there. But fear not! There is a stripped-down version of the ASL rule set called "ASL Starter Kit", that is a much easier entry-point to the system. Starter Kit doesn't have fun things like fires or buildings crumbling. Full ASL tells incredibly detailed stories - nothing can beat being upstairs from your opponent in the same building, and throwing a Molotov cocktail downstairs, only to have it catch the building on fire and then rubble it, killing you both. If you want to get into full ASL, you'll have to buy the 2nd edition Rulebook (ASLRB), as well as Beyond Valor, which includes all of the game system counters. After that, go hog wild and buy whatever you want! Beginner: ASL Starter Kit #1 Intermediate: Beyond Valor (ASL Module #1) Advanced:   The best way to buy wargames is to go to your FLGS and hope that they specialise in wargames. If that's not an option, the usual outlets like CoolStuffInc can suffice, otherwise you'll have to order directly from the publisher. Here are some of the better companies out there: GMT Games: One of the larger wargaming companies, they produce very high quality games and publish most if not all of the CDGs available. They run one of the better pre-ordering systems within the industry. Victory Point Games: Victory Point Games aren't flashy, but they produce some of better low complexity games out there. Have partnered up with GMT many times in order to spruce up some of their better designs. Multi-Man Publishing: Producers of some of the best hex and counter games out there, including ASL and OCS, among others. DVG: Horrible site, but excellent games! DVG is currently one of the foremost, well-known publishers for solitaire games. Simmons Games: Designer/Publisher for my own personal favourites, Napoleon's Triumph and Guns of Gettysburg. Columbia Games: One of the most well-known producers of block wargames. Think another company should be up here? Let me know and I'll add it!  The best way to play the wargames above is currently Vassal: Vassal allows you to share a map with other people and track movement of counters in real time. The only issue with Vassal is that some modules for it are better than others, with ones automating most of the rules of the game while others only provide a bare-bones interface. Many of the CDGs above can alternatively be played in Wargameroom. All of the games there are rules-enabled, with the only issue being that many can't use the official map of the game. Also, many of the games are still beta versions which can potentially have a ton of bugs. If you are ever interested in setting up a game, you will find like-minded goons on #boardgoons on SYNIRC! If you think there is a mistake in this OP or you would like something added, let me know by PM or IRC! 
Tekopo fucked around with this message at 09:27 on Dec 12, 2019 |
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Aug 10, 2013 02:05
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Paths of Glory is indeed seriously, seriously good. The only problem is that I hardly play it offline anymore so when I play it on wargameroom I don't remember half the rules because, you know, it does everything for me 
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Aug 10, 2013 02:17
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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). It does asymmetrical warfare really well and the system that it uses is really innovative: although it takes cues from CDGs, it's actually radically different. Basically there is a single deck from which you can see the current card and the next one available (no one has a hands of cards, people play the same cards). On the cards there is an initiative order and an event, that can be fired one of two ways. The smart bit is that if you play this card, you can't play the next, making it a real choice which one you go for. Only two people can play a card and what the first player does affects what the second can do. It's one of the better innovations in CDGs I've seen in a while and shows that Volko Runkhe, the designer, really learnt from Labyrinth (which I consider a really bad game).
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Aug 10, 2013 20:41
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I'm gonna go more in depth when I do my big effort post about Simmons games ( ), but the issue with Labyrinth is that, in a genre pretty much inundated with dice, the game used too many dice. When you have to roll dice to literally move troops or do anything at all, patience starts wearing thin.
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Aug 10, 2013 21:09
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i had really bad experiences with the Labyrinth AI hence why I'm a bit skeptical of the one for AA: I dislike having to go through resolution flowchart in order to find out what to do and frankly the diplomacy aspect of AA seems to be the real focus of the game. No wargaming this weekend, was hoping to get in a game of GoG or TS at least, no such luck. It's kind of difficult to get a game for me since my wargaming buddy left the country. Do you guys have issues finding people to play?
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Aug 11, 2013 18:29
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I've had that issue when attempting to get people interested in Napoleon's Triumph/Guns of Gettysburg: most people I know do not have interest at all in Napoleonics/ACW. Or, for that matter, the COIN operations in Colombia.
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Aug 11, 2013 23:42
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I come from both fields, to be honest. I love the gameplay of wargames because it is so different from everything else and sometimes you need to play something that is directly competitive but still has a strong rule-base present. It's also the sense of aesthetics: I love seeing how front-lines progress, or how Corps square up against each other and create a living map in NT/GoG. Everything tells it's own little story, but that's only possible if the rules are strong. I'm usually more of a fun of euros, but I think I said to another goon that I love wargames because they give you all the tools possible in order to mitigate your luck, so it never feels like a decision is out of your hands. On the other hand, I'm currently reading World on Fire (a book about UK/US relations during the ACW) and the last few books I've read have been Gettysburg, Villa & Zapata: A Biography of the Mexican Revolution, The Spanish Civil War and Shelby Foote's Civil War: A Narrative. I'm definitely in there for the history aspects as well, especially ACW.
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Aug 12, 2013 00:45
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Does Space Empires 4X count? There's also Space Infantry but I have no idea how good it actually is, although it's a solitaire game. Talking about Columbia games, Rommel in the Desert is seriously, seriously good. I really liked the supply system (although I'd house-rule it to make it so every player has a seperate deck with even distribution): the way it works is that you get supply cards, some of which are actual supply cards while others are blank. During your turn if you have the initiative you can play cards: at least one has to be supply. A single supply card allows you to move a single formation and then fight, two supply cards allow you to move two formations and fight or move one formation and fight with twice the dice, while playing three cards allows you to move a formation, fight, then move another formation and fight (useful for exploiting holes created by the first fight). The blank cards can be used to bluff, allowing you to threaten a breakthrough even though you don't have enough supply to exploit it, thus making it more likely that your opponent will retreat to protect his line. As well as the above, after every combat phase you roll a number of replacement points: in order to replenish units you have to move them all the way back to the home base (this can be done by using replacement points in order to ship them by boat or making them travel all the way back). This is a good system since the further you are from your base, the more difficult it becomes to replace your stuff. The combat itself is simple enough that I could get even my dad to give it a shot.
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Aug 12, 2013 10:25
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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.
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Aug 12, 2013 22:54
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Feel free! I'm actually really interested in AARs/Reviews, I'm going to do a few of them myself about GoG/NT/No Retreat/Other stuff I play once I get the chance to get some pics. Would love to see the thread covered with pictures like this one: That fish-hook...
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Aug 13, 2013 11:16
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silvergoose posted:You want pictures? Here's one from my latest NT game!
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Aug 14, 2013 00:12
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ConorT posted:Crossposting from #Boardgoons: Come play Andean Abyss on Vassal this weekend with me and Tekopo, PM me or hit me on IRC.
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Aug 14, 2013 10:03
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Storm that island, don't let them dig in!
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Aug 14, 2013 17:13
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Dre2Dee2 posted:Any room for newer players? It's a game I've been thinking about buying and would love to try it before I buy it
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Aug 14, 2013 17:16
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Lichtenstein you are a real motherfucker, I might go out to my FLGS tomorrow and see if I can bag a copy of Red Winter, the game looks nice as hell and I think it might fit well with a friend of mine that really liked No Retreat.
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Aug 14, 2013 22:56
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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. As for the Andead Abyss people, let me know what times you would be available on the Saturday, so that we can round-about know when everyone should be on IRC to meet up.
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Aug 15, 2013 10:09
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Played a game with another goon of GoG, we are in the middle of the first afternoon and the fighting is already pretty intense. We set up as follows (smaller pictures to follow, but let's have a look at the whole battlefield first):  This is a pretty standard setup for the Union: one of Buford's brigades covers the Chambersburg Road while the other makes sure that Mummasburg/Harrisburg in case any of the 2nd Corps Confederates try to sneak by. Both players draw their hand of battle tokens: I take a peek at the top 3rd Corps Reinforcement and notice that it is Anderson: I have a double Artillery for him so I should be able to do an early attack if he comes up soon. The first turn is rather boring as nothing happens since none of the Confederates turn up. We each keep drawing one token/discard one until 8am-9am arrives, upon which I receive my first reinforcement from the Chambersburg pike: it's Anderson's boys! I use off-road movement: when you move in troops you can either do off-road, in which case the troops come in from near the entry area, or on-road, in which case you can move them up as many spaces as you want up a road (the CSA, however, cannot have that road enter/cross Gettysburg). I set up Anderson as follows:  I then declare an attack for next turn! This means I can't refresh my hand of battle tokens, but it does mean that I will be able to pressure that pesky Union cavalry off Herr's Ridge. There are three general orders in Guns of Gettysburg: Attack, Withdraw and Hold. Since I have on more reinforcements over the Union, the Union player gets to move one objective: he picks the one closest to my troops and moves it South. On the 9am-10am turn, the Union player draws his battle token and then withdraws his cavalry (the order of movements in this game is Withdraw/Attack/Reinforce/March). Cavalry is special in that it can withdraw even if you aren't on withdraw general orders! Every other unit is locked if it it's an enemy Field of Fire: FoF is usually the area in front of a unit and, if the unit is on a ridge, the extended areas next to that area (if not blocked by obstructed terrain/other ridges). After the withdraws, he flips the reinforcement token and gets a Corps coming up from Emmitsburg! It ends up being Sedgewick's Corps, one of the best in the Union army! He uses on-road movement to move all the way up to Seminary Ridge: it's clear that holding the line on McPherson's Ridge would have been hard. During my turn I move Anderson up and after seeing no further reinforcements, I declare another attack: I need to keep the pressure up and at least take a shot at Sedgewick before he can get too entrenched. Yet again, the Union player gets an objective movement, inching the objective closer to Cemetery Ridge south of Gettysburg.  During the next turn, 10am-11am the Union player draws a new token then withdraws his cavalry from McPherson's Ridge to get back to Seminary Ridge. He doesn't get any new Corps in reinforcement, so instead he moves another of Sedgewick's brigades using on-road movement (only one block an hour can move up a road). He calls an hold for next turn. Not being able to attack, I instead go straight to reinforcements, drawing another Chambersburg reinforcement, which ends up being Heth's Division from 3rd Corps. A bit later than history but at least he's there. I use on-road to move him up to a position next to Anderson's, while moving Anderson's Division up for an attack next turn. I declare an attack and the Union player moves his objective yet again closer to Cemetary Ridge. Still, his infantry can't retreat anymore so I'm guaranteed a confrontation next turn.  Next Update: The First Attack!
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Aug 15, 2013 22:07
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Guns of Gettsysburg Part II Alright, before we talk about the attack, a few things. Unlike in Napoleon's Triumph, blocks in this game take positions rather than areas: in effect, the blocks are always 'on approach'. The position relative to the edge represent their facings and (unlike Napoleon's Triumph), it's the symbol in FRONT of the block that is taken into account when determining if the piece is on a ridge/other piece of terrain (this means that, unlike NT, you don't have to continually pick up pieces to check what terrain they are on). Movement is easy: changing facing costs nothing and you have a minimum movement of 2 positions. Where this becomes difficult is when taking into consideration multi-hour turn, but more on that later. Obstructed terrian takes an additional movement allowance to move through: if you move next to enemy units or on their FoF, you have to stop immediately. So how do attack work? Well, let's get back to the position we left at the other time: During their turn, the union player moved up his last Sedgewick piece using road movement to extend his line and then continued placing his men on McPherson's Ridge. I declared an attack on his position that had two pieces (one of Sedgewick's brigades and the cavalry brigade that had pulled back). The two pieces I select to attack are the two blocks that form Anderson's Division (I apologize in advance for the lack of pictures and the forthcoming wall of text). The union player then plays artillery token, no more than two per position that has a FoF on the attacking pieces. He places two tokens on each of his positions and I begin to get worried: he has more guns available than I thought he would get: this could get ugly fast for Anderson's Division. I then place tokens: my only limitation is that the position I place tokens on has to have at least one piece that's attacking and has to conform to organisational requirements. Organisational requirements basically limit where you can play tokens: *Any* tokens will match any single unit, named division (or corps for the Union player) tokens have to match at least two blocks of the same division/corps, while Corps (Confederate) have to match three units from the same Corps / Reserve (Union) have to match at least three units that are infantry. I need to play at least two tokens (one per piece attacking enemy positions) and I choose a double-cannon Anderson token and a single *Any* token. In artillery combat, multiple of threes are what are important. After I place tokens, we then reveal: the Union player reveals 4 single-cannon *Any* tokens, while I reveal my own tokens. For every multiple of three I get, I can knock out one of his cannons and since there's not much choice, one of the single-cannon *Any* tokens get hit. I placed my artillery on the used pile: it has done its job for now. Next comes defensive fire: the Union player counts how many cannons he has (in this case, three). He then adds the ridge bonus: for every cannon symbol on a ridge, he gets an extra cannon, although the bonus cannot give more than double the amount of cannons on that position. He has one position with one cannon (goes to two with the ridge bonus) and one position with two cannons (goes to four with the ridge bonus) for a total of 6 cannons! Yet again, multiples of three count, but in this case each multiple of three results in a step loss for me. Since all blocks are initially strength two in this game, step losses are taken in a different way than in Napoleon's Triumph. Every single division/corps has a certain number of strength-2 replacements: when you take a hit, the player that's taking a loss selects two blocks (either two strength-2 block, one strength-2, one strength-1 or two strength-1) and then lets the other player choose one. Along with creating a degree of fog of war about losses, this also allows the game to represent the qualitative advantage of Confederate troops. Anderson has two strength-2 blocks, so my first reduction is guaranteed to go to one of those (since I can choose both of them). The second reduction makes my reduced strength-2 go to strength-1. Thus both step losses are fulfilled and the artillery phase of combat is finished. Finally, the defender shows his leading defender in order to determine the winner of the combat. He shows a 2-strength Sedgewick block (of course), so the current result of the combat is -1 (+1 for my piece, -2 for his). Confederates in attacks get +1, making the combat result 0: still not enough to win me the combat and no further modifiers apply. If the result is between -1 to +1, both sides take step loss: in this case, I lose my reduced strength-1 piece, while Sedgewick goes to a guaranteed strength-2 piece. My piece is forced to retreat back to starting line of attack immediately: I've lost half of Anderson's division for very little gain. Finally, I remove the artillery pieces I used for the combat from the game and the union artillery that was hit is also removed. In my reinforcement movement phase, I move up Heth and then call a hold for the general order for my next turn: it's clear that I need to wait for more reinforcements since another frontal attack would be suicide. I also get Pender's Division, but since I moved up Heth using on-road movement, they will have to wait.  Next update, Multi-Hour Turns! Tekopo fucked around with this message at 10:25 on Aug 17, 2013 |
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Aug 17, 2013 00:15
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I think it was World At War where I played as the Italians once (we only used the Europe map), did nothing because of my meager forces and lost half my fleet the first turn I actually did something. I think the game can be fun so don't take my game as gospel (just don't play with more than one player as Axis if you are just using Europe). I managed to get a game of Red Winter today: we only got as far as the end of the first day and my explanation of the rules was really rushed but the game seemed really easy to grasp. We are going to try again Monday, hopefully I can give a better session report then.
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Aug 17, 2013 00:42
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Oxford Comma posted:Nothing as fun as getting halfway thru your game when the cat jumps onto the table, counters now flying everywhere.
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Aug 17, 2013 15:44
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Guns of Gettysburg Having called a hold in my last turn, I get the possibility of calling a multi-hour turn in my next turn (the player with initiative, in this case the Confederates). The upper limit of hours is determined by counting the number of blocks that the player with the least block has on the board: for every three blocks, an extra hour can be added to the turn: in this case, the maximum is 2 hours since the union player has 5 blocks on the board. If I decided to only do one hour, I would be forced to attack or retreat next turn (this rule is present in order to prevent the player with initiative from needlessly stretching turns by using hold orders instead of consolidating them in one large multi-hour turn). There are some advantages to calling multi-hour turns: first of all, you draw one token per hour, you get to see more reinforcement tokens and you get to march further/bring in more reinforcements. Marching is slightly different for the two players as the player in initiative gets +2 movement per hour while the non-initiative player only gets +1 per hour. The most difficult thing about multi-hour turns is the effect on reinforcements: since they come at a certain hour it's important to keep track of when a unit comes into the board. I decide to call the two hour turn and hence the next turn will be from 12 to 2pm. The Union player draws two tokens and flips the next two reinforcement tokens: both rumours. He moves up his last Sedgewick brigade to extend the line northward and then calls a Withdrawal general order: it's clear that he's worried about his right flank, which is why he called the order. He does, however, have to discard half of his tokens due to calling a withdrawal. My turn comes around and I draw two tokens, replenishing my hand. No withdrawals or attacks, so I draw my two reinforcement tokens: one from Mummasburg and one from Chambersburg! Second Corps is finally on the field. The Chambersburg division is Johnson's, while the Mummasburg one is Rodes. I make everything enter by off-road movement: Pender comes in on the first hour in Chambersburg while Rodes comes in at the same hour in Mummasburg. Johnson, having arrived on the second hour, also comes in off-road but can't move further that turn. Rodes and Pender use multi-hour movement to move up. Since there is an obstruction on the right flank of the Union line, I can sneak past without worrying about FoF. It seems like the Union player did the right thing by calling a retreat! For my marches, I also move Heth to come round the side: I want to be able to threaten the Union flank if possible. I call attack on the next turn (helping the Union player on his decision to vacate the area) and the Union player gets two movements of objectives (one per hour).  The current situation: one of the objectives is already behind Cemetery Ridge, but there's nothing I could have done to prevent it. Since I called an attack, the next turn lasts from 2pm to 3pm. The Union player drops back his line, abandoning McPherson's Ridge and taking up a position on Seminary Ridge: still a strong position but it has a danger of being flanked since the terrain North of Gettysburg doesn't feature much in terms of defensible terrain. He also pulls back Buford's brigade since there's no point covering the Harrisburg pike anymore. As reinforcement, he finally gets another Corps, from the Baltimore Road: Sykes has arrived on the field. Fortunately, Sykes' Corps is one of the weaker one, having not a single strength-2 reduction. During his movement, he brings in one of Sykes' brigades using on-road movement and then shuffles his lines to strengthen his north-facing right flank and calls a hold for next turn. I get no further reinforcements this turn and since there is nothing to attack, go immediately to marches: I decide to use a march token (give +1 movement to 3 blocks) to move Heth up to threaten the left flank of the Union Army while I quickly march Pender and Rodes to the Union right. Johnson also moves up: I want to place him next to Rodes so that I can keep the 2nd Corps together. I call an attack next turn: the ground north of Gettsyburg has nary a ridge in sight so I'm confident I will be able to smash through.  Next Update: The Confederate attack!
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Aug 17, 2013 16:54
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Dre2Dee2, hop online on the boardgoons chat if you can, thinking of starting relatively soonish for the Andean Abyss game.
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Aug 17, 2013 19:44
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No update for Guns of Gettysburg, but I did play a game IRL so here's the end result (me as the confederates). Very messy fight, lines got broken after I managed to bag Sedgewick's Corps. Union never really withdrew to recreate his lines, which was probably his biggest problem.
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Aug 18, 2013 22:07
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Sorry for the crappy lighting: I was playing as the Finns. This was at the end of the 2nd day: he grouped up most of his front line and dug in since he was worried about night attacks. The first night was brutal: I destroyed a full stack of mortars/mgs after getting a good night raid roll since they hadn't been stacked with any infantry. In the same night, he left his supply chain open so I was able to raid his artillery park: he didn't get very far in day 2 but he was beginning to flank. Very interesting game!
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Aug 19, 2013 23:29
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Lichtenstein posted:Ouch! I'm afraid that with that losses and lack of ground coverage the soviets lost already. Still, don't tell that to your opponent and you'll enjoy few more hours of an enjoyable learning game and testing various maneuvers and tactics. Yet, with so many costly mistakes to learn from he might become a fearsome opponent in a rematch. He had most of his AT guns and a stack of infantry covering his artillery depot. Two stacks of infantry were attempting to flank me from the north as well.
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Aug 20, 2013 12:05
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I'm really curious on how they are going to preserve the balance of power that is the crux of AA within those designs since there is much more explicit co-operation within those particular coalitions than between the AUC/Govt and the Cartels/FARC. It's why I'm looking forward to Cuba Libre, since I'm hoping that it will deliver an experience similar to AA without taking an entire day to play.
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Aug 20, 2013 13:01
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Does anyone have any experience with the Field Commander series? I'm interested in solo games and I always wanted to try out Field Commander: Napoleon but I was always unsure if I would like it or not.
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Aug 21, 2013 13:51
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I think that randomness is a bit of a given but I was hoping that they would bring slightly more of a challenge: guess I'm stuck waiting for the Fields of Fire reprint or for the second one to come off P500 if I want to get my fix of highly tactical solitaire games. There was an LP of FoF that was REALLY interesting but I think it's gone to the archives now.
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Aug 21, 2013 16:35
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Talking about LPs, who would be interested in one involving Guns of Gettysburg? It's something that I've been talking to silvergoose about. Basically, the idea is to have the goons take a side (or ideally, if we can do it, both sides). Rule knowledge would not be required, with only basic concepts being told to the 'players'. The 'players' would have an hierarchy of sorts, while two mods (one per side) would actually play out the turns based on the plans of the 'players'.
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Aug 21, 2013 17:05
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Gentlemen, there is NO CHEATING in the war-room!
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Aug 22, 2013 14:39
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There is, however, a very satisfying feeling when your opponent loses sight of the Iron Brigade (it's -2 on defense so it's pretty awesome), and you manage to sneak it to your other flank when your opponent isn't expecting it to be.
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Aug 22, 2013 14:48
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I've got Phantom Leader on my iPad and it isn't a bad game. It's not actually that heavy: the combat is really simple and there aren't that many rules. If you do have an iPad I would recommend at least giving it a go, although I'm not sure if the cardboard version of the game is worth buying. I've heard Apache/Warthog Leader is much better, though, and much more tactical.
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Aug 22, 2013 15:20
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Guns of Gettysburg In the 3pm to 4pm turn, the Union player doesn't do much apart from moving Sykes up to cover his flank, while shuffling troops around to make sure he's got his flank covered: at the moment, he's only got a cavalry block protecting his extreme right and that's not going to stand up to attack. He gets no further reinforcements this turn and calls a hold for next turn: I'm glad he did since it means he probably won't be able to reshuffle his lines once I bring up Heth. I start my turn by immediately declaring the attack: one block from Rodes' Division and one from Pender's. I don't use two blocks each because that would require me to use 4 battle tokens: since I'm not doing an attack up a ridge and my flanks are covered, I don't need to worry too much.  The Union place his artillery tokens and I place mine. He reveals three single-cannon *Any* tokens, while I reveal one double-cannon Pender token and a single-cannon *Any* tokens. My artillery knocks out one of his tokens and since he's not on a ridge, he only gets 2 cannon symbols overall: not enough to force me to take a step loss. In GoG it is possible to do group attacks to up to two adjacent places and there is a bonus for winning the combat in the first position: I select the position closest to the enemy center, hoping that I'm facing cavalry, only to be slightly dissapointed that it's actually another of Sedgewick's brigade. Still, both blocks are strength 2, but thanks to the confederate bonus I win the position! Even winning a single position will win you the entire fight. At the second position, the Union player shows one of Sykes' brigades, while I show one of Rodes: It's two to two strength, but I have the confederate bonus for +1 and I won the first position for another +1, so I win by +2: this means he has to take a loss and I don't. Having won the combat, the defenders need to retreat, but that will only happen during their turn. I deliberate on what I need to call next for a general order: attack would allow me to keep the pressure, but I'm running out of tokens and I need to bring Johnson up to support. I finally decide to call hold.
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Aug 22, 2013 22:05
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Yeah, of course. I need to clear up a few things on how I'm gonna run things and find someone with the time to run it with me. It'll probably happen after I finish my Dungeon Petz PBP since otherwise it'll never get finished.
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Aug 23, 2013 15:07
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Regarding playing, if anyone feels like playing any wargames on vassal/wargameroom hit me up on the boardgoons channel on synirc since I should have time this weekend/next week.
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Aug 24, 2013 19:50
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I'll agree with other people's assessments of Andean Abyss: the dice luck is very limited and largely there are ways to compensate it/avoid it altogether, which really I see as the central aim of any wargaming ruleset: the ability to manipulate the odds in order to allow you to have a better chance of winning. I've finally written my review of Guns of Gettysburg, so if you are interested in reading it, check out my blog.
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Aug 26, 2013 06:39
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I've done some solo campaigns with Iron and Oak and the game is alright, but it's very heavily designed around the dice mechanism that is present within the entirety of the game. The basics of it is that you roll challenge dice and response dice to do pretty much anything. So a gun might have a rating of a D6, D4 and D12 and the enemy armour might be a D12 and D6. You roll each bunch of dice separately and pick the highest dice in the response/challenge and compare them against each other. The results in Iron and Oak can be pretty random, which I guess simulates the fact that ironclad combat was pretty much decided by random shots hitting critical points at opportune times. Another thing about the game is that movement is very abstracted: instead of having hexes you just have boxes where you can attempt to cross the T if you are in the same box as an enemy. I kind of like the system since I also liked Kaiser's Pirates (a card game using similar mechanisms) but since you need to roll dice for pretty much anything, it might not be for everyone.
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Aug 27, 2013 12:08
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Panzeh/ConorT/Dre2Dee2, let me know if you are free this weekend to finish our AA game
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Aug 27, 2013 22:04
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Even though it is quite random at times and feels like a CYAO World War II game, I have to say that I'm really enjoying Totaler Krieg: most of the random elements are just setup for the struggle and the game itself is incredibly varied in terms of how you can approach the war. Somehow it seems to work though and the combat system is pretty solid (very reminiscent of No Retreat!, at least to me). I'd be interested in doing a huge Axis Empires game one day.
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Aug 28, 2013 21:40
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| # ¿ Apr 30, 2024 07:47 |
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cenotaph posted:How do you like the card deck? It seems like it would be impossible to know what you're doing the first time through.
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Aug 29, 2013 13:48
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