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Back before we split this thread from general boardgame talk, I gushed about Red Winter. Frankly, I feel like gushing some more. I've been thinking of making a big effortpost about it, something between an overview, a review and a fast-forwarded session report. Would anyone be interested in reading this, or would I be simply making GBS threads up the thread with my inane rambling?
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Aug 13, 2013 10:54
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| # ¿ May 3, 2024 03:56 |
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 Red Winter: The Soviet Attack at Tolvajärvi, Finland: 8-12 December 1939 Overview, Part 1Red Winter: (...), the stunning debut of Mark Mokszycki might be my favourite hex'n'counter wargame to date. While very familiar mechanically to anyone with experience in the genre, thanks to its subject matter, unusual scale - and the few interesting new mechanics - it manages to feel fresh and exciting, conveying a vivid narrative and proper feel of this unique battle without getting bogged down in minutiae. It also has an optional rule about looting sausages from a field kitchen. The game depicts a (relatively) famous battle of the Winter War, where a desperate Finnish defence turned into a counteroffensive that ended shattering the Soviet force five times their size. The unique flow of battle and the situation both sides find themselves in makes for incredibly gameable topic. First, there's the map:  It's both very practical and pretty (at least it was before resizing it down not to break the tables), but most importantly it's crafted very cleverly and elegantly. For example, all terrain is either harsh or a frozen lake. While there are some differences in cost to move through, there's basically no fiddling with terrain modifiers or lines of sights. Speaking of LOS, it's simply blocked by everything that isn't a lake hex, highlighting this unique terrain feature. Mind you, the game is of a grand tactical scale - meaning somewhere between typical tactical and operational, with counters depicting either infantry companies or heavy weapons platoons - and therefore LOS is only ever checked for stuff like self-spotting mortars. The lay of the land is also quite interesting and lends itself to some clever planning:  What further spruces up the already interesting situation is the asymmetry of both forces, who both require different playstyle and tactics. The soviets just keep coming, using their superior numbers to either brute-force through or encircle Finnish defensive positions. They also heavily outgun their opponents with well-supplied heavy artillery and ample LMGs allowing their infantry companies double as a poor mans MGs. If these advantages would turn out insufficient, the Soviet player has the option of calling in armored support, especially harsh considering Finns only get two units capable of AT fire, on third and fifth day of the battle, one of which is an outdated piece of poo poo repurposed infantry gun captured back in 1918  . On the flipside, the Soviets are completely unprepared for the harsh winter conditions, visible from afar in their brown uniforms and freezing to death at nights. You'd think the Russians know a thing or two about winter combat, but there you go.Thankfully, the plucky Finns have a few tricks up their sleeve. First, their units have more movement points and can ski cheaper across the lakes. Second, they enjoy the superior logistics, not requiring roads to trace supply when off raiding. Or skiing. Third, their units are equipped with numerous SMGs, giving them an edge in close assaults (you'll need to bleed the soviets out a bit to make use of it, though). Fourth, their defensive doctrine provides many more dug-in counters to slap down on board to provide tasty boni. Finally, their superior command is represented by Lt. Aaro Pajari counter running around providing buffs as well as providing an opportunity to spring a nasty surprise once they switch into offensive tactics.  This is how the first day of the battle begins (placement of Finns right side of the lake is variable, the rest is set. Soviets outside of map are the first-turn reinforcements). About half of the Finnish forces starts reduced and unprepared, while the other half scrambles to hastily set up defences and delay the enemy until reinforcements arrive. Finnish plan is to fortify along the Kivisalmi bridge - an obvious defensive position - and delay their flanking attempts as long as possible. The first soviet forces push forward confidently, paving the way for an endless stream of reinforcements. Next Time: I play Europa Universalis IV until I go into cardiac arrest and on the way to hospital remember there's actual gameplay to show off.
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Aug 13, 2013 14:44
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I'd like to take this occasion to remind/enlighten everyone about this... thing on BGG. PS. In comments later on, the author admits to typing this... thing on an iphone.
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Aug 13, 2013 22:14
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Red Winter: The Soviet Attack at Tolvajärvi, Finland: 8-12 December 1939 Overview, Part 2 10:30 AM  I shifted both MGs to a single battalion for greater mobility. Soviets advance, their spirits high. All that lies before them is another outnumbered group of pushover Finns. An engagement commences. Combat in Red Winter begins with players rolling for ranged support of other units. As long as a unit is not adjacent to an enemy, in range - and in case of direct fire, has a line of sight - it can roll some dice and hope to inflict a suppression marker, and with some stacked modifiers maybe even a step reduction or two. The way it's fine-tuned really reminds me of ranged combat in Band of Brothers: Screaming Eagles. Suppression markers either prevent a unit from counter-firing or provide a column shift in the proper combat. As the mentioning of shifts revealed, the combat itself is governed by a typical CRT:  The CRT is actually quite harsh for the attacker - this is because it has a terrain penalty already baked in! Between 2d6 and the way table is calibrated, combat results feel pretty swingy. I'd love to blame failing attacks with 5:1 odds on my dice, but the unlikely results happen consistently enough for me to accept them as a feature. One unintuitive thing about the combat system is that assaults happen during the movement phase, before any ranged support can be commited. Finnish defence is sort of tricky - MG strength is doubled on the defence, but they're less mobile (more on that later) and if they happen to get hurt there's no way to rebuild them. I opted agains pairing them with a meatshield infantrymen, since they increase chance of getting hit by ranged fire (due to difference in scale between a company and a weapons platoon - there's simply a lot more guys to shoot at). Morning mists prevent Soviet indirect fire from achieving anything of note. But the lone Finnish mortar platoon manages to suppress one of the Soviet stacks! After boni of Lt. Pajari command and Soviet high morale cancel each other out, Reds are left with meager 2:1 odds, rolling a result of 2/1. Ouch! The losses are taken as either step reductions or number of hexes all units must retreat, to a maximum of their movement allowance -2. This means a couple of implications: - Unless you manage to encircle the enemy and force retreats into ZOCs, winning engagements is mostly a matter of pushing the enemy around. - Finnish mobility stealthily gives them a resilience buff. - Attackers cannot advance after combat if they chose to retreat at all, forcing choices of either men or territory. After giving it some consideration, I choose to take both losses as step reductions and advance further. Our exceptional morale helps us recover lost steps while it lasts and we have reserves anyway.  The less time Finns have to further fortify that bridge, the better for us. The first thing Finns attempt is to attempt to recover the reduced units. Supplied infantry companies may forfeit their action to roll a die and attempt to flip back to the full strength side on 6. There are precious few modifiers to that roll, with my personal favourite being staying far enough from the enemy - it's a small thing, but it forces the players to rotate troops and keep a de-facto reserve.  It takes two turns of staying in place not adjacent to enemy units to get the dug-in bonus. That's why we stall so much! Road movement far away from enemies grants extra movement point, allowing our off-map reinforcements to get close to defensive positions. 12:00 PM  Soviet battle plan is as straightforward as predictable: front-line battalions push forward, reinforcements try to catch up. After thinking about what to do with the sole non-reduced company of the red battalion (it cannot reinforce the bridge, as the stacking limit is five units of which up to three are infantry companies) I move them in position to secure the little island in the middle of the lake to stretch the Finns thin - if they'd let me secure the island unmolested, it'd enable me to bypass all their defences, safely redeploying via the lake and probably forcing the enemy to abandon the whole area, since they lack manpower to properly secure all of the possible "landing zones". Back on the Kivisalmi bridge, my frontage is reduced, but the situation actually improved. The morning mists are gone, my fire support is in a better position and twenty four 76mm off-map artillery guns report for duty. The 76mm is the bread-and-butter artillery in this game, and the only kind of ranged unit tracking ammo. In addition to ammo count, flippable tokens of particular batteries are an additional restriction of per-turn barrages. While Finns began the game with two 76mm artillery counters, I've opted to limit defensive fire to the on-map mortar platoon. Finnish artillery is not only ammunition-starved, but also severely undergunned (Finnish tokens represent four guns, as opposed to soviets twelve per counter). This makes them both costly and inefficient to use - they're practically only ever useful if soviets stack up infantry companies on lakes, and even then they're just average. Still, it's a nice deterrent if they do. The mist thing is actually slightly annoying - depending on the hour, weather not only gives a negative modifier to ranged support, but also limits the maximum lenght of LOS. It's thankfully 100% uniform across all days and is printed on the turn track, with turns having differing colors to remind you, but it's still the kind of rule you always keep forgetting about.  Fire enough guns, and you're bound to hit something. We end up with 3:1 odds and a result of 1/1. Not the best result, but at least we keep pushing forward.  The single company that recovered last turn was of the sub-par (due to exhaustion from earlier battle) bicycle battalion. Still, for the Finns every man counts! We park them on a critical crossroad, to entrench it. The two reinforcing companies secure the Hernesaari island - I'm afraid sending only one of them wouldn't be enough of a deterrent. Unsure where the soviets will strike, I position mortars and MGs so that they cover as much as they can. Now, I meant fot this part to be one turn longer, but the decision Soviets face is just too tasty not to drop it on you: ) Actually, we're in position to just throw everything at that island, to surround and crush forces on it. Especially considering that along with two fresh battalions, we get more indirect fire support this turn. Even if it works, it may prove costly - but if we pull it off, they'll both suffer considerable losses and will be forced to pull their defences back. ) Dumb poo poo like storming lakes is what lost the battle in real life. We stay on ground, push along the road, perhaps deploy reinforcements in position to cross the big Tolvajärvi lake to stretch the enemy thinner. Take it slow and sensible, with plenty of time to prepare for the night, when we're at our weakest and get aggressive tomorrow, when the heavy artillery arrives.Next time: The sun sets and Finns are up to all kinds of shenanigans. Paper Mac posted:Can Soviet armor leave the road at all? Since it won't come up for a long time, I'll answer it now: they are stuck to roads and village hexes, and even then must pay extra movement points to use secondary (brown) roads. There is an optional what-if rule, though, allowing to deploy tanks cross-country (as soviets did in later stages of the war) for a steep cost in movement points. There's actually quite a few of those optional rules, ranging from balance tweakers (eg. cross-battalion coordination penalties for soviets, possibility of getting lost during Finnish night raids), through grogness-adders (reaction fire, breakdown platoons), to pure chrome (field kitchens, Pajaris heart condition, looting Sovier LMGs). The nicest thing about these is that on player aid, all optional stuff is printed in different color. Lichtenstein fucked around with this message at 17:59 on Aug 14, 2013 |
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Aug 14, 2013 12:49
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Tekopo posted: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. Consider this revenge for making me buy Pax Porfiriana. It was the end of a month and I had to forfeit eating.  Note, though, that similarly to No Retreat, while individual turns don't take too much time, there's enough of them to make the full game take rear end-long. There's quite a few scenarios for single sitting, covering about a day each. I pretty much never play scenarios in such games, always jumping in full games I probably won't finish, but from what I saw skimming the playbook the proposed set-ups look quite interesting. Lichtenstein fucked around with this message at 03:01 on Aug 15, 2013 |
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Aug 15, 2013 02:23
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Red Winter: The Soviet Attack at Tolvajärvi, Finland: 8-12 December 1939 Overview, Part 3 1:30 PM  It's on. We proceed with the plan. We've encircled the enemy with superior numbers, gathered most of on-map fire support by the lakeside and proceed to pound them with all artillery at our disposal. We amass a total of 5 suppression tokens. It's quite an overkill, since shifts on CRT are capped at three suppression tokens, but it'll allow us to negate some suppression of our own - and with these fat stacks exposed on ice we're definitely gonna get hit. Finns respond with their own two 76mm batteries, leaving them with a single ammunition point. Yet, the attack achieves nothing. Forces by the lakeside manage to land three suppresion tokens, but didn't flip any unit. This leaves us at very favourable 6:1 odds. We roll 0/5 - which is exactly what we needed! We inflict a step loss and a second one for retreating though ZOC - destroying one unit and leaving the other barely alive.  We can't really set our feet on their side of the lake via advance after combat due to ZOCs, but instead we get into position to strike next turn. It's not like these lone mortars can hold off our assault.  As opposed to exemplary recoveries on the Soviet side, Finns only manage to again flip just one company to its full stregth side. I send a nearbycomany to Kotisaari island, predicting future Soviet plans, and then decide to try and hold the lakeside for just one more turn. I really want the crossroads entrenched in time and if we luck out and keep the Reds on the ice until nightfall, they'll be in deep trouble. HQ sends in mere 2 points of 76mm ammunition. 3:00 PM  Our main fighting force is completed by four AT gun counters, which are pretty much the most useless counters in the whole game. The Finns do not have any vehicles at their disposal and the guns utterly suck when fighting anything else. I don't really see any reason for their inclusion other than  about OOB. They provide ZOC I guess, but they're single step units and frags provide VPs so one cannot even really use them as dispensable meatshields. I move to force Finns into screening me properly on the Tolvajärvi lake and try to bust my way through the Taivaljärvi.The attack goes smoothly, until heavily modified (again, big stack exposed on the lake) Finnish mortar attack rolls boxcars and takes two steps in addition to suppressing our force! We're left with risky 3:1 odds, but roll high for 0/4 result. Since we fought slow-rear end MG platoons, we manage to reduce both of them.  It's kinda hard to talk about Finnish turn, since it's 100% setting up for the next turn. Though I have to admit it's one of those turns where everything is just a hex too far away. I wanted to set up Lt. Pajari Field Hospital and have the bicycle company guard the little island to the south (I'm uneasy with the weakest link of the defense allowing Soviets to swarm Kotisaari and tackle MGs without lake penalties) as well as making better use of my reinforcements.  Still, I'm pretty happy with that single company to the right: Reds can't really chase them down just yet and will be forced to do some screening. Thankfully, the timing makes it a really rear end in a top hat move. 4:30 PM If Red Winter has any claim to originality (mechanics-wise), it's quite certainly about the night turns. Whole time between 4:30 PM to 7:30 AM is condensed to one supercharged turn, where recovering is easier, units not in ZOCs gain double the movement rate or alternatively dig-in instantly - even in ZOC! So far so good, but... There's some twists. One would think Russians know a thing or two about fighting in winter, but this time their lack of preparation is wehrmacht-grade embarrassing. Their brown uniforms make them even more of sitting ducks when traversing lakes and do not offer nearly enough protection from harsh weather. Therefore each Soviet stack has about 50% chance of losing a step each night due to attrition, desertion and general SNAFU. Thankfully, there's a workaround - units can forfeit their turn to chop down giant gently caress off bonfires to warm the soldiers. On the other hand, these have a habit of making you an extremely conspicuous and easy target for the Finns. It's not easy being a communist. As of writing this, I noticed two big fuckups I made, thankfully spread evenly across the armies: 1) My habit of further fortifying the Hotel is pretty retarded, considering one can simply pop those trenches during the night. 2) Somehow I forgot that the red Soviet companies are as eligible for the doubled move as anyone else and moved them in a really suboptimal way. Let's call that roleplaying, okay?  Instead of chasing down the lone company and locking it in a ZOC, I mistakenly screen it, gnashing my teeth at how scattering the forces will amount to extra attrition rolls. Still, stopping these lone Finns is of utmost importance: if they were to warp speed through those narrow lakes, it'd be really troublesome to chase them down before they reach our supply source and wreck the poo poo out of our artillery park. Since one of the stacks that crossed Taivaljärvi cannot protect itself from the cold due to ZOC anyway, I decide I might as well try to go and kick some Finns around before they inevitably entrench. The attack is unsupported - disappointing accuracy in darkness makes neither wasting ammo nor risking freezing mortars to death worth it. The soldiers are greeted by the tireless Finnish mortars and infantrymen protecting them. Amazingly, both of them manage to land a suppression, leading to unnerving 1:2 odds and a result of 0/2. For some reason I chose to take the second loss as a step hit, probably because I forgot about the possibility of entrenching in ZOC during the night.  The rest of the army gets busy with bonfires. I mathed out that I don't really fear Finnish attempts at attacking these stacks. This leads to a warning: since there's neither any randomness nor hidden information during the movement phase, the enormous flexibility Finns enjoy during nights may lead to severe analysis paralysis during last two turns of each day. Speaking of Finns, they give no fucks about troublesome weather. Proper clothing and portable stoves mean they only ever need to roll for attrition if they initiate combat - and even then they enjoy a better chance to remain unscathed than the Soviets. Aside from spamming trenches and running around in warp speed and generally being assholes, the Finns have yet another trick up their sleeves to strike the enemy at their weakest: the night raids. One stack of full-strength units may forfeit their turn to embark on a daring raid to raise hell behind enemy lines. They may move up to three times their movement allowance (!), launch a brutal, turbocharged, strike and then casually return to where they started from. Exchanging sleep for heroics takes it's toll, though, and participants roll their attrition checks not as a stack, but individually. It's really quite scary to have one of them damaged during the raid itself. Unfortunately for presenting the game, our cutting right into the middle of the Finnish lines resulted in a rather freakish situation where most units are too close to the front to get caught unaware by the enemy and the only eligible target I can actually reach are the loving AT guns. I don't really consider them worth risking the attrition rolls. Still, the fact we're not raiding this time doesn't prevent us from loving up some Soviets the conventional way.  I saw opportunity to encircle one of the breakthrough stacks and attack them at decent enough odds. The idea is that I need to inlict only one step loss on a last full-strength unit so that failed winter attrition will finish somebody off. Finns manage to pull off 1/1 which is good enough, I guess. I choose to lose the step by retreating into a ZOC - if a unit does get eliminated, I don't want it happening out of supply. And so ends the first day of the battle. Soldiers and commanders alike are shocked to have been halted and bloodied by an inferior enemy. The high morale troops enjoyed is long gone, but the resistance only strenghtened the resolve of the higher echelon to take the village of Tolvajärvi. Heavy artillery support is to arrive in the morning and there are talks of another regiment being deployed to the area. The real battle is about to begin.  This is how the situation looks in the morning. Historically (well, according to the scenario book) Soviets should have halted right next to the Hotel while also taking control of the Kotisaari island. This doesn't mean they did badly this time: I am of opinion that simulation-wise the first day of the battle is hosed up and the historical result is impossible to achieve if the Finns offer any resistance. It's hard to say how accurate the other days are, since the initial inaccuracy kind of propagates forward and I don't really play scenarios. However, I think the game conveys the feel of the battle really well and the battle as presented has a distinct flow to it. What I'm saying is if you're not the Tolvajärvi battle biggest fan #1 this is probably just a minor nitpick that won't have impact on your enjoyment of the game. Next time: Honestly, I don't know yet. Probably a big fast-forward. Talk about supply and poo poo. Lichtenstein fucked around with this message at 12:22 on Aug 16, 2013 |
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Aug 16, 2013 01:14
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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. Note that in future busting mortars via night raids will be almost impossible due to ZOC coverage (the eternal wargaming problem of players not being as surprised by what's going to happen). It's the one aspect where it's got this CDG thing where the first game has a different feel than all that come afterwards. Where did all soviets go? Near the supply source and dead? Even though you probably mostly just did some pushing along the road, how do you enjoy the game? And speaking of Red Winter, I'll try to drop a next part of the overview in the coming days, since I'll go offline for two weeks after thursday.
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Aug 19, 2013 23:54
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I have Napoleon, haven't played the earlier games. You know how some simple PC wargames, like Panzer General or Unity of Command sometimes feel more like a sort of efficiency puzzle rather than a game about commanding soldiers? It's a bit like that, but in cardboard form. It's not bad by any means (I like the way Dan Verssen did battles in this one) but I have a hard time recommending or discouraging from it. It's a slightly different taste than the usual wargames. Lichtenstein fucked around with this message at 16:17 on Aug 21, 2013 |
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Aug 21, 2013 14:48
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Sadly, yes.  I have a tendency of not finishing things, but this was some mummy's curse poo poo, with PC breaking down and me getting sick repeatedly. Still, I'm pretty sure the official game page on GMTs site now has all the player aids needed to try it out on Vassal. Just be warned that with this game it's either love/hate or hate/hate. There is no other option, perhaps apart from Stockholm syndrome.
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Aug 21, 2013 16:53
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Not if you cheat. 
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Aug 22, 2013 14:34
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Phantom suffers from simply having less stuff to play with than the other games in the series.
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Aug 22, 2013 15:28
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If you don't mind playing with starships just a little bit longer, Saganami Island Tactical Simulator is pretty close to peak .
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Aug 27, 2013 13:03
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thorsilver posted:Oh man... I've always been tempted by this. How Sadly, the friend who bought it was a major fan of the books, but not really a grognard, so we didn't go too far the one time I managed to get it on table. Still, lately he's been itching to give it another go. A couple of points I hazily remember from that session: - The game basically has a sort of physics system, tracking ship's momentum in 3D. I'd say your enjoyment of the game is correlated to whether you have a boner after thinking about it. - I remember handling the damage was quite . There were shitloads of hitboxes superimposed on ship's blueprint, with various critical systems being hit in the deeper rows. It's sort of like damage in Battletech, but more detailed - like, instead of particular zones like robots arm or legs, it's more of a grid thing, that can be attacked from all sorts of weird angles. There was also some fun stuff related to different weapon types, like missles being fired before, but hitting after the ships moved.- I've actually played the second edition, dumbed down for the unwashed, yet still extremely spergy, masses. The only difference of note that I remember was cutting the seven (?) phases per turn to only three. Haven't having played the first edition, I'd still try to go with the second one, it's already big, complex and tedious enough. - Time-wise it came to me as a bit of "I'm stuck in a cabin far from civilization for the entire weekend" kind of game. It's a bit hard to give more precise estimates, since we were struggling with rules, with pretty much me being the only grog in the room. Author says it's about 120 minutes when you know your poo poo, so I'd guess about four hours could be a pretty realistic target? - If you like the Honor Harrington books, there's some fun stuff in rulebook, with author spergin' on the research he's done and Weber admitting he completely hosed up some numbers. - I don't think there was any of the ridiculous excel ship-building. Rather, the game provided you with all sorts of pre-sperged ships because CANON. Attack Vector, mentioned earlier was basically the base this game was made on, by slapping on a license. It might be a cheaper alternative if you don't care much for the particular universe SITS is set in, but I'm afraid it'll be equivalent to the hypercomplicated first edition. Squadron Strike seems to be based on 2ed SITS and allows to do all those silly "can Klingons destroy the death star?" scenarios, so it might be the best buy if there's enough to play with before you're forced to do the Excel wizardry.
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Aug 28, 2013 08:32
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GMT difficulty levels relate to other wargames, not the board games for normal people. Having said that, I think you should handle AA if you're compelled by the theme. Just don't expect to whip out the game and start playing immediately - read the rules once or twice and perhaps play a few turns solo to get a grip on things and only then show it to your friends. Think of it as dealing with a Vlaada Chvatil game: lots to learn up-front and having to struggle with rulebook for a bit to do so. But basically, if Chvatil's games don't overwhelm you, you should be able to deal with this one either. Combat Commander should be a bit easier than AA, but what might color my opinion is that half of it is based on some of the most traditional wargaming conventions - hexes, lines of sights, poo poo like that.
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Aug 28, 2013 16:50
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Mighty Eris posted:Not wanting to step on Lichtenstein's toes, but I'm playing Red Winter PBEM at the moment - would anyone be interested in a session report, to see the ways in which different strategies can shake out? Go right ahead! And speaking of myself, I just came back home yesterday, and therefore are able to resume the broadcast soon.
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Sep 6, 2013 08:34
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Are there any cool boardgames about the Afghanistan intervention (the Soviet one)?
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Sep 10, 2013 13:57
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Personally, I'm a bit wary of it - I think it might lack both the unique accents and simple elegance of Red Winter. I mean, look at these playtest counters:  So. Much. poo poo. Still, I really hope Mr. Mokszycki knows his poo poo, since I really enjoyed Red Winter. Lichtenstein fucked around with this message at 13:28 on Sep 16, 2013 |
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Sep 16, 2013 11:37
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It's one of those things that are present only in player aids. Buuuut, you can download the official Vassal module and write the player aids down. Note that you probably want to watch these videos from BGG, since in a true :fieldsoffire: fashion half of comments there is rulestalk, complete with OP doing a few mistakes in his playthrough. Lichtenstein fucked around with this message at 13:10 on Sep 30, 2013 |
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Sep 30, 2013 13:06
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Tekopo posted:finish showcasing Red Winter btw I actually will! It just turned out I needed Uni to begin anew to have time for anything.
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Sep 30, 2013 21:20
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I remember Friedrich better than Maria, but I don't think there's any reason to bother with the tutorial, unless it's your opponents second boardgame ever after Ticket to Ride or something.
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Nov 13, 2013 17:06
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Personally, I'm sort of put off by those colorful stones. The idea behind them is neat, but in the end they look ugly to me. It's not a big deal though, at least it has character. Somehow I got busy and haven't had time for proper wargamin' and grognardin' since August and I've got a feeling a breaking point and massive wargaming binge is coming soon. On the other hand, being a massive procrastinator, being swamped with work meant I spent most of the boring lecture at university bringing my on/off homebrew wargame project close to a working prototype. 
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Nov 15, 2013 13:30
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One Pigeon posted:Field Commander Napoleon quote:Fields of Fire It's the kind of girl you know is bad for you, yet you keep coming back and end up crying yourself to sleep. It is the best solo wargame ever made. It is also the worst wargame ever made. Everything ever said about FoF is true. Definitely try it out on Vassal before making any decision. [edit] Though I guess it's a point in its favor if if makes you feel like a grizzled Vietnam vet. Lichtenstein fucked around with this message at 21:38 on Nov 16, 2013 |
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Nov 16, 2013 21:14
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What non-Bowen Simmons games 1) are good 2) convey the geometry of pre-WW1 gunpowder era warfare?
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Nov 19, 2013 02:14
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It's a fine choice. Alternatively, you might want to take a look at Band of Brothers: Ghost Panzer.
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Dec 17, 2013 18:56
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Every time you mention Labyrinth I find it amusing that while we both agree the game is dicefesty, we disagree on which side really drives the problem. I think the Jihadists are actually less luck-based. For starters, they roll enough dice for the laws of statistics kick in at some point. More importantly, their rolling is manageable. Unless you really get your rear end handed to you, there should be plenty of 3- rolls - fair odds - to make, while the more stable countries can be dealt with events, swarmed by troops from nearby Magical Taliban Caliphate* or ignored, for the most part. Now, the USA simply has to diligently power through the stability rolls with little to stack the odds in their favor, but worst of all is forced to do the dreaded Prestige roll. Which, thanks to it's incredible swinginess, can pretty much make or break the game on its own and there's nothing one can do about it. * I, obviously, refer to the weird domino theory the game forces on you.
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Jan 20, 2014 14:52
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Tekopo posted:Mostly? Any misgivings? It may quickly wear out it's welcome due to repetitive nature I guess?
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Jan 21, 2014 20:31
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I think your best bet is a netbook and Vassal.
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Mar 9, 2014 14:42
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Pursuit of Glory 
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Mar 13, 2014 10:42
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So, I'd like to have a little discussion on wargame mechanics, camouflaged as a design challenge. I really like the wargames with some sort of political layer to them - whether it's maneuvering between other players, Diplomacy-style, or just wooing fake cardboard men. This got me thinking about the War of the League of Cambrai (you don't have to read the whole thing, just peek at the beligerents table): is it possible to represent this traitorous insanity in a boardgame form as a coherent diplomatic system? Limitations: - Keep it sane, not Campaign for North Africa-ish. - The side-switching should contain some interesting game space, rather that being set in stone or just rolling dice forever. - If you think the best way is to have factions jumping between two camps, you have to somehow define the camps. - No matter how many players you think is optimal for representing the conflict, no-one should have to sit out a few hours in the middle of the game, nor be stuck playing, like, Scotland, when their opponents are duking it out as global superpowers like France and HRE.
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May 23, 2014 17:58
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I'll check it later, but I vaguely remember them being meant to actually shoot at the position with both you and the other Krauts, as the defenders are dug-in and therefore the whole situation is advantageous for the AI. And I think prisoners of war were basically transported via pokeballs?
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Jun 9, 2014 10:39
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Just wait for the Old Breed, it'll have even more rules!!! Speaking of FoF, if you're having fun with the game I'd love if you did me a 'lil favor: do the first scenario of the Korean campaign (the one that came in the box, not the downloadable one) and drop a little write-up here. No need for a detailed AAR, just a short captain's log about how you feel when it begins and every few turns in. It should be amusing for everyone involved. Oh, and try to not read up on charts/stuff you don't need at a particular moment, to preserve a little mystique about it.
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Jun 9, 2014 12:08
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You know what this hobby is lacking? Cool fantasy wargames. While we're still waiting for Fury and whatever A Few Acres of Snow sequel is called, there's little in terms of choice. I've been eyeing the Warhammer: Diskwars for a while, yet ultimately was put off by it being the epitome of dumb-looking nerdy poo poo (let slip the tazos of war). The recent Shut Up & Sit Down fiasco made me finally bite the bullet and check it out. To recap, Quinns reviewed the game negatively, after which it turned out he got the rules wrong (can't blame him, the rulebook is the second coming of Through The Ages). Still, trying it again didn't change his mind. Personally I think re-reviewing it on a short notice made him stuck in some misconceptions and he did the game a disservice. I could go on about why his arguments are sort of bullshit, but I assume no one is really interested. The game itself is basically like a miniatures game, but streamlined and given to a good designer to strip most of the hassle , excessive dice rolling and dumb 80s design. Mind you, it has zero simulation value for grogs (it's a game about wizards and elves, so what do you expect, really?), but I think it works really nice as a game. It hits the sweet spot between brain-burning and uncertainty, gives enough room to maneuver while being to the point, has a quick pace and excellent portability and setup/teardown time. The armies feel markedly different and thematic, there's a neat abtracted handling of command & control and the forces are customisable without it taking forever. The variable setup is pretty neat, differentiating games and forcing flexibility, while at the same time cutting arguments about how much terrain is enough. The other thing I particularly liked was the tight math and CCG-style distinct keywords on units, providing the thrill of thinking up a cool combo, yet not dominating the game, which is ultimately won by maneuver. In short, look past the tazos and check it out.
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Jun 11, 2014 12:11
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The 'ranged units ruin my puzzle' complaint, in my opinion, is 100% leftover of the rules misread. The way things works, you need to dish out a certain threshold of damage to inflict a wound (most units die on a single wound) during a round, as the regular damage tokens reset when the it ends. Melee units have fixed strength, while ranged units roll the dice. Most of the time you roll 2-3 dice with 1/3 chance (per die) to a bit of damage and additional 1/6 chance to waste your targets activation for the round. IMO it works just as intended: it's not entirely reliable (so you can't just lock the board down), there's a chance to bust the target (either by stunning the enemy or accumulating enough hits to kill him) that you really cannot center your plan around and what you really should aim for most of the time is to get a single hit to push your frontline melee troops juuust above the needed damage threshold. They're basically meant to work as skirmishers. Now, when played wrongly (namely using only 3-4 units out of about 10 per round) the activation becomes too precious to use in such a supporting role and archery does turn into dumb all-or-nothing affair. It's worth mentioning that melee combat is mostly free from dice rolls (the exception being some special abilities of I think two discs in the entire box), there's still enough uncertainty to elevate it above a math exercise. There's the whole Command Card initiative-wrangling minigame (timing is essential for how melee works), buffs you can drop to mess up opponent's math or spells that shake the whole situation up. Again, this was totally lost by the rules error which prevented using available tools at all. I get a strong vibe that when he sat down with it the second time he already had preconceived notions of how stuff worked and didn't really reconsider the interactions. Then there's this bizarre sentence: Quinns posted:For example, if you have high ground and missile troops you should really just stay still.  Not to mention seriously advocating resolving ranged combat by physically dropping counters and looking where they land - perhaps the discs made him expect some silly little game in vein of Catacombs?As for the avoiding confrontation part, I do not have enough experience with the game to be sure there's no degenerate plays, but I did not find it troublesome. The possible objectives are either accumulating frags, assasinating the generals or raiding enemy deployment zone - I think it's just to leave some room for feinting. So I guess if you got rid of enemy heroes you want to get on the defensive, but by that time there's probably already a giant mosh pit you need to somehow deal with. Tekopo posted:What about Wizard Kings by Columbia games? It's basically a block wargame with fantasy armies.  . Seriously though, I'll have a look. I do dislike C&C however. Part of that might be the game itself hating me (I'm not the type to bitch about dice rolls, but man, this series is some Pharaoh's Curse poo poo), but it didn't click with me in general. I also felt Battlelore (core set at least) had some balance issues.quote:It walks that line between miniature wargames and proper ( I'd say it definitely feels more minaturey than grognardy. It's basically a miniatures gamey game, except better (speaking as a person with zero interest in miniatures as a hobby). Tight mechanics are a part of it - there's little to none sperging about poo poo like whether you're one milimeter too far or whether you're too tall to hide behind a cactus. The one confusing thing are situations with a lot of disks piled on top of each other, but it's one of those thing that are nigh incomprehensible until they somehow click in your head and then you can tell stuff apart at glance from the other side of the room. Lichtenstein fucked around with this message at 14:12 on Jun 11, 2014 |
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Jun 11, 2014 13:59
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Yep, CDGs are the worst games for soloing. I mean, you can even sort of solo block games with poo poo enough short-term memory to make details fuzzy, but htere's really no way to handle CDGs.
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Jun 11, 2014 15:13
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Any particular peferences? Eastern Front is probably the single most popular topic out here.
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Jun 14, 2014 08:09
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Trynant posted:Oh hey fancy that Triumph of Chaos covers this topic. It's a weird scary semi-monster with an incomprehensible rulebook, so you might want to check some other games first.
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Jun 14, 2014 13:02
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A Victory Lost might be good for you. I mean, it's a bit simplistic and gamey for a seasoned grognard, but it's a rather neat gateway game that'll get you up to speed with most hex'n'counter mainstays. And as usual, I recommend Red Winter which will give you a taste of both tactical and operational games. Both of these have soviets feel soviet in gameplay.
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Jun 14, 2014 23:38
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Fat Turkey posted:I've also heard that the first game (probably here), you should be Soviet and they be US, which feels counter intuitive. But by showing them how to be aggressive early game, they get a better idea of how to play than playing a passive USSR who gets crushed late game. Start a new game and switch sides after the Early War if they want to get into it straight away. Yeah, I also think it is a stupid notion, mostly because it's the US that really gets hit by trap cards like the Blockade. For a long time USSR has to worry about what, Japan? With soviets it's all stuff you can help with ad hoc, as in "nah, put your points elsewhere, you'll get Romania via event".
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Jul 17, 2014 13:38
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Be a man, start with the Korean campaign.
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Jul 25, 2014 13:08
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| # ¿ May 3, 2024 03:56 |
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I'm intrigued that in addition to the legions, Romans have auxilia troops that look exactly like the gaellic "insurgents". And apparently NPC Germani. And two different shapes of "base" tokens. And those big dong tokens, for chieftains or whatever. What I'm trying to say is that it's cool they're apparently shaking up the formula.
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Jul 29, 2014 00:53
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