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I just got NT in trade for Commands and Colors Ancients from a guy on BGG and I'm going through the rulebook and some of the videos. Can't wait to try it out.
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Aug 14, 2013 00:09
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| # ¿ May 2, 2024 23:23 |
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I'm no expert, but I think wargaming has moved far enough beyond Tactics 2 that it's not really relevant anymore and wouldn't give you a good idea of what the genre has to offer.
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Aug 15, 2013 02:09
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That's for America in Flames.
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Aug 17, 2013 06:02
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I don't know if I'd participate but I'd love to see it.
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Aug 21, 2013 17:33
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Combat Commander was the first non-minis wargame I played and it's not that hard to pick up. If you're not used to the bullet-number rulebook they can be a little challenging, but CC has a thorough walkthrough of several turns of the game to help you get up to speed. Also a good chunk of the rulebook is just longer explanations of things printed on the cards so you don't have to read the whole thing to get started.
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Aug 28, 2013 16:59
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King Chicken posted:Chad Jnsen is really good at writing rule books and simplifying complex ideas, which makes Combat Commander a great entry into tactical wargames. It's not only suitable as a first game, but possibly the only one you'll ever need. There is lighter stuff out there, but go with a game that is actually good rather than worrying about gateway crap. When discussing Combat Commander people generally get hung up on the card aspect and the triggers, but honestly the variable game length and the multiple win conditions are what makes it my favorite game. Of course a lot of that is tied to the cards as well. It's definitely the only squad level game I care to play since the others always seem to have boring "take this building in five turns" sort of scenarios. Up Front is great for man-to-man scale but no matter what squad level stuff I try I always go back to CC. Paratroopers, Mediterranean, and the core game are all on the reprint P500 right now so they'll definitely be available again eventually.
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Aug 28, 2013 21:27
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Tekopo posted: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. 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 28, 2013 22:15
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The card decks seemed like the coolest thing about TK when I was looking at it because of the way the model the consequence of choice. A big rulebook with no index and wondering how I was going to rope two other people into a multi-session game put me off buying it. But it looks so awesome.  Scyther posted:Thanks for the opinions, it sounds like Combat Commander is the winner. Europe is currently out of print but the BGG marketplace has some for very reasonable prices. Let us know if you pick it up. I'd be happy to answer questions, etc.
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Aug 29, 2013 17:41
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VoodooXT posted:It's getting reprinted in December, as per their monthly update that came out today. And Paratroopers in November! Finally the gap in my map collection will be closed.
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Aug 30, 2013 07:59
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Despite really loving Europe for Combat Commander I never picked up Pacific. It seemed like it would be pretty boring, just the American setting up fire positions and hoping the Japanese didn't make it into melee, especially with the lower frequency of events. I also don't like the idea of being able to play two Asset Denied orders to completely eliminate an opposing machine gun. The designer basically admitted in one of the threads on BGG that he toned down the events to appease naysayers which seems really odd to me when you've already got a fanbase that already loves Europe. Personally I'm comfortable with the level of randomness in Europe, and usually I hate much randomness in games. It's the kind of randomness that won't decide the game for you. It can mess around with you a little but if you feel like it's deciding games you probably haven't figured out how to play well yet. The only people I've had an opportunity to play against semi-regularly are pretty bad at the game and the only times I've lost have been blunders I made all by myself.
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Sep 10, 2013 19:24
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Going in to the specifics of each nation would take forever, but each nation's deck is subtly different in event trigger count and the types of events contained within. For instance, only the Russians have the Commissar event, and only the Americans have White Phosphorous. The British have lots of Marksmanship actions so they can increase the FP of their attacks without relying on MGs to used sustained fire with. The order distributions are different as well, but usually only one or two off in either direction of the base. The Italians have a couple more Command Confusions and also have more jams because of their crappy MGs. The French have a pretty good deck with a terrible discard limit. Then of course there are the stats on the counters. Germans are pretty all around good, as are the British. The Americans, like in ASL, have poor morale on the front and good on the reverse so they go to ground quickly but recover easily. The U.S. also has above average FP and tons of boxed stats so they can use all the nifty actions to represent all the gear they had. The Russians have lots of guys with mediocre FP and bad range. The French and Italians are pretty mediocre in all apsects. Each nation also has a leader:squad ratio where the Germans are generally the best and the Italians and Russians are the worst. With more leaders you'll have more options to set up your troops and maybe a backup leader if one of them goes down. It's not that stuff like this isn't present in Pacific but I read all the changes in the Rulebook (especially to events and actions) and the invasion scenarios look a little dull so I didn't pick it up. Hearing things like easier hand management and fewer/less potent events scares me off a bit because tricky hand management and planning around bad stuff happening are really appealing to me in Europe. I'd be willing to give it a shot but I don't want to buy it just to do that.
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Sep 11, 2013 19:24
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I washed the metal pieces to remove any release agent that might have been on them and then painted on a couple of coats of gloss varnish. If they come off 
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Sep 18, 2013 19:37
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Putting all the counters from Europe in the included tray is probably harder than just doing baggies. I did it when I got the game and after a couple games decided to order some more. I have one tray per nationality plus a system markers tray.
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Sep 20, 2013 23:47
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You were applying terrain bonuses to your morale rolls, right?
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Oct 4, 2013 16:33
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It makes attempting to rout your opponent a rather unattractive proposition for elimination or retreat unless they're in the open or on a road. Routing can be good to burn an otherwise useless card from your hand without discarding or to run the clock faster.
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Oct 4, 2013 19:36
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I've been mildly interested in Attack Sub for a while because it's similar to Up Front. Definitely post your thoughts when you try it.
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Nov 6, 2013 18:19
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We played Cuba Libre last night and I really enjoyed it. It took me a while to figure out what I was supposed to be doing to win (which is a problem I usually have when learning variable power area influence type games) but after it clicked it went a lot more smoothly. I enjoyed how the game slowly layers bonus effects on to the 26 July faction. We also had a player leave early so we replaced them with an AI, which was handy. It was really close at the end, with the Govt and DR tying with one point off of victory and the AI syndicate and I being a point behind them. I also like the basic flow of the game that the cards create. Sometimes you need to pass because you absolutely need to take the upcoming card. It creates some jockeying for turn order which doesn't seem very common in pseudo-wargames but it's a gameplay element I like very much.
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Dec 24, 2013 20:13
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I really appreciate a game's ability to put you in the mindset of someone doing abhorrent things just because they'll let you win.
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Jan 10, 2014 21:59
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So the reprints of Combat Commander Europe and the Mediterranean expansion are shipping now, if anyone was looking for them. Reprints of the Paratroopers and Stalingrad battlepacks are due to ship soon, along with the new Sealion expansion. I've been working my way through the Musket and Pike series rulebook and I'm liking what I see so far. The orders system seems really cool. I'm also watching the tutorial videos form GMT but they guy rambles a lot and it feels like there's about 25 minutes of information in the hour long video.
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Feb 9, 2014 00:57
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Yeah when I first started with Combat Commander my buddy and I gave up on Hedgerows and Hand Grenades because we had no idea how to effectively attack in that scenario. I can't remember how long it dragged but it felt interminable. A good bit of advice that also keeps the game flowing at a reasonable pace is that if you have fewer playable orders than your order limit, discard. Never discard one or two cards to set up a perfect hand.
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Mar 16, 2014 22:32
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Totaler Krieg looks great but it's one of those games I'd never get to the table if I got it. I can sell my group on a lot of stuff but having them actually read rules and make long term plans is a bit beyond what they're willing to invest.
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Apr 27, 2014 21:28
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Wizard Kings comes with a "usable" collection of eight units from each of the seven armies and then you buy blind boosters. It seems completely stupid. Tekopo, I'm wondering what about Rommel in the Desert you like considering you've mentioned your dislike of X+ hits mechanics before. The dice aspect has kept me away from Columbia block games despite the everything else about them looking pretty nice.
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Jun 11, 2014 19:55
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Riso posted:I can tell you one thing, Julius Caesar doesn't use dice at all. The rulebook says it has dice rolling for combat.
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Jun 11, 2014 20:22
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For WWIII tactical Lock n' Load has the World at War series. I haven't played it but it's one of the only WWIII themed games currently being published.
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Jun 15, 2014 01:31
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Ilthe01 and I just finished up a game of Napoleon's Triumph on VASSAL. We had played before but it was a floundering mess of rules look-ups and mistakes so we just abandoned it a few turns in. It was still a floundering mess of rules look-ups this time but we didn't make too many mistakes. I won a "decisive" victory as the French with five morale to zero but Ilthe got me down to one the previous turn and I called in my reserves to be safe. We both had a couple of terrible blunders. His was something earlier on I don't really remember the details of but mine was getting a full strength corps shattered by unnecessarily moving it up when I already had a decent position. I feel like I actually have a vague idea of how things work now. Here are a couple of crappy screenshots.  
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Jul 13, 2014 06:18
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I gathered from various reviews and discussion that the slow, attritional nature of combat was a very important concept to get one's head around. If I couldn't flank to dice up a corps I fed some mediocre unit into the meat grinder to hold my better stuff for a more decisive attack. Personally I like the tension of trying to maintain your line when you move. It's really easy to open yourself up to some pretty brutal assaults if you make a bad push forward. We used skype. I can't imagine playing anything more complex than a C&C game on Vassal without voice. Any advice on what to do with artillery? I find it kind of perplexing. It seems really hard to get into position.
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Jul 13, 2014 09:37
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Thanks for the arty advice. I don't think I put a whole corps in an approach the whole game. Also i think Ilthe is understating the flanking since I did it whenever possible even if I wasn't going to attack since I was trying to create disorder to make the Allies' command disadvantage even tougher.
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Jul 13, 2014 20:50
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It depends on the player count and if you want to play for 10 hours.
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Oct 19, 2014 22:44
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That's one of the reasons I like it so much. You can't deduce the optimal strategy and then hope the dice cooperated. It's got more texture.
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Oct 30, 2014 09:13
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I would like a non-poo poo warhammer game besides citow.
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Nov 13, 2014 21:57
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Gutter Owl posted:It's called Blood Bowl, but it's not a wargame. Played the PC version and it's not really my thing. I just want a 40k hex and counter game, preferably around the scale of epic. Hopefully that Armageddon game Slitherine is putting out will be good.
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Nov 13, 2014 23:31
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I've never really played a pc wargame but I should probably give them a shot.
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Nov 13, 2014 23:39
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Lichtenstein posted:I'm currently suffering a sort of burnout regarding tactical games. The basic gameplay of "get your dudes in better cover than the opponent and fiddle with LoS" feels very by-the-book and procedural. I currently feel that the games in the genre are able to sustain attention only by: Combat Commander if you like hands of cards.
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Nov 15, 2014 00:28
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My Combat Commander counters are from the printing where they accidentally had side nubs in addition to the corner nubs so rather than round the corners and still have frilly bits on the side I used the scissors on my swiss army knife to cut the corners into perfect right angles. I had a dent in my thumb for hours.
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Nov 21, 2014 23:08
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Don't know how I only found out about this yesterday. Great War Commander. I hope it's good.
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Dec 12, 2014 07:54
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Ilthe and I played Up Front tonight and spent altogether too much time looking stuff up for what should be about a one hour game. I hadn't played in two years. It's a fun game though unlike Combat Commander it has a combined deck so occasionally you run into one player getting all the fire cards and the other player getting all the rally cards so you just sort of spin your wheels for a while. Vassal screenshot where I will fail to eliminate Ilthe's Squad B and we neglect to put the relative range counter in the provided spots: 
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Dec 31, 2014 04:55
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Ilthe and I played two games of Up Front tonight. He won the first game in which the Vassal deck shuffling was inadequate and we kept getting runs of the same card type over and over again. I shot up his Germans quite a bit but I run out of fire cards and he waltzes to range chit 4 and drops beneficial terrain to win. Here are my Americans in game one using all the drat smoke because I can't find a decent rally card.  We made sure to shuffle the deck more for the second game. Things getting a bit bloody with three men KIA in each group A and one in the German group B.  The end of game two where we spent 20 minutes reading the  CLOSE COMBAT RULES where the game really shows its 80s vintage. I win by double teaming his broken squad leader. I'm only two away from surrender with two men pinned so it was still close.  It's a good game and plays relatively quickly once you have the rules down. cenotaph fucked around with this message at 06:33 on Jan 9, 2015 |
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Jan 9, 2015 05:27
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The constant jerking off to the founders in America makes me generally not want to play anything related to the revolution.
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Jan 11, 2015 21:02
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If it's a first play just have a do-over.
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Jan 13, 2015 00:13
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| # ¿ May 2, 2024 23:23 |
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I remember one review where he was kind of cool on the game but I can't remember what it was.
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Jan 14, 2015 21:08
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