Board Game Geek Reviews

by bfundak

I have been obsessively gaming over the last year and have managed to grab about 20-30 euro-games in that time. I was brought into the fold by Settlers of Catan and quickly got hooked on Agricola. But one of the games that always intrigued me was Friedemann Frisse's Power Grid, a game that a lot of people talked well of, but that I had never played. Around the Christmas holiday, my friend John brought his copy to a game night we were having, and when my wife gave me the gift of a Thoughthammer shopping spree as a belated Christmas gift, Power Grid was a must have on my list. Here's why.

The components of Power Grid are some of the best I have seen. The grid maps (of the US and Germany on a double sided board) are very stylized, invoking memories of Fritz Lang's Metropolis and the steampunk movement with all of the conduits linking the cities. At the bottom of the map is a strip that represents the market for the different fuels needed to power the power plants. The fuel markers are a series of wooden cylinders painted different colors to signify the different fuels available (coal, oil, garbage and plutonium.) The power plants themselves are simplistically represented in deck that is shuffled and dealt out to an auction market that the players use to put them into play (more on that later.) The money used in the game is nothing special, owing much to the ubiquitous nature of Monopoly money, but making money isn't the ultimate goal of this game, so the fact that it appears to be an afterthought compared to the other components isn't a total shock and does not detract from game play, and it is that game play where this game truly shines.

The idea of the game is to create a power grid amongst the cities on the map while your opponents do the same. The ultimate goal is to be the player that can power the most cities when the end game conditions are met. In the rounds leading up to that moment, players grow their networks by bidding on power plants that gradually allow for supporting more cities, staking claims to cities adjacent to the player's network and buying resources to fuel the plants. It is how these events occur that make Power Grid one of the best games out there. The way the game is designed, it would be easy for one player to run out to the front of the pack and bury everyone else. However, Friese has brilliantly split the game turn into phases that prevent this from occurring. While the starting player gets to start the bidding process for the power plants, it is the players who are in last place who get first crack at buying fuel and expanding their networks. This encourages competitive balance, as growing your network too fast will put you at a distinct disadvantage for growing your network and fueling your power plants. This, in turn, makes sure most games are going to be played tightly, with no one trying to pull ahead. In addition, for the first two "steps" of the game, the auction block contains both a current and "futures" market for plants. The mechanism for this auction are a little too complex to go into detail here, but it is designed in such a way that the most powerful power plants end up placed back in the power plant deck and not brought into play until the last step of the game, when they will not give a particular player an unfair advantage (namely, the player who loses all of the bids and gets to buy the power plant at cost.)

One problem with the game, however, is that in its attempts to be balanced, it actually detracts from some of the game. The game plays 2-6 players, but every different number of players invokes different rules and charts for fuel distribution, which can be confusing. You never want the rule book to be further than 3 feet from the play area at any time for reference. Complicated rules may discourage some of your casual gaming friends from joining in. Also, the beautiful map that comes with the game is divided into six colored segments, but to get the game to play right, you always must eliminate at least one of the segments to get the game to balance right. It's a little disappointing to play on a game board that is beautifully designed, but that you have to ignore a section of it to have balanced play. That said, Friese has managed to take multiple countries and create balanced maps for them. The game comes with maps of Germany and the United States, and many more have been published, which I think is quite the accomplishment, given the varying shapes of those regions.

The flaws with Power Grid are too small to outweigh a game that has really nice balance and is a true joy to play. I will never turn down a chance to play this game. I would highly recommend giving it a try if you haven't yet. Just remember to be patient and be sure to keep that rule book handy.

by MyParadox

Fluxx has been around for a while now. Like Munchkin, Fluxx can now be found in several flavors (including, most recently, Monty Python and Martian). Each plays almost exactly the same, so you can pretty much pick up the theme you like best and not bother much with the others. Fluxx is the ultimate 'waiting in line' game. It’s portable, it’s simple, and when the line finally starts to move, you won’t mind picking it up. At the same time, it’s quite entertaining.

The Basics. Fluxx is very simple. There is only one rule: Draw One Card, Play One Card. That’s it. At the beginning, there aren’t even any win conditions. However, the cards you play can alter the game dramatically. For example some of the cards introduce new rules into the game. They can have players draw additional cards, play additional cards, or even introduce hand limits.

Other cards, called Keepers, sit in front of you, just staring at you, hoping one day to be useful. Goals, meanwhile, introduce the conditions for victory. In general, the goal will require a player to have two or more specified keepers in front of him or her. Finally, Action cards allow the player to take some specified action.

Fluxx is never the same. The rules are constantly changing, and the fun of the game lies in trying to remember what all the rules currently are. Its inconsistency is both a benefit and a detriment. The majority of games are incredibly fun with huge fluctuations. But occasionally you’ll play a game where the rules end up as Draw Five, Play One. Everyone has huge hands and the game bogs down.

This game, while incredibly random, also allows for some modicum of strategy. A goal you may be able to reach is generally best saved until you’re close to reaching it. And, if you have a lot of Keepers, sometimes it is good to introduce a rule requiring players to play all cards from their hand in the hope that they’ll be forced to play a Goal that you meet and therefore win.

However, it's important to understand what this game isn’t. This game is not a deep thinking, strategic endeavor. Fluxx is not an analytical challenge. In fact, I would never invite a group of friends over specifically for the purpose of playing Fluxx, as I would some other games. If Fluxx comes up, great. It can be played between heavier games, or while some people make a late night food run.

Components: 4 of 5. The cards are on nice stock and are about the size of typical playing cards. Maybe just a hair smaller. They are easy to shuffle. The artwork is serviceable, if a bit ordinary. Many of the cards are text only, though they are clear enough. Despite the neat box art, on the inside Fluxx really doesn’t have much to look at.

Strategy/Luck Balance: 1 of 5. Fluxx is highly luck driven with almost no strategy aspects. Some strategy does exist in certain situations, but mostly you are at the mercy of the cards. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Playing Fluxx is about playing a game where you are completely out of control on every other player’s turn. It’s about reacting to random and often forced changes. It can be very entertaining, but it very much is ruled by the luck of the draw. One major drawback are the Creepers. Some of them are harder to get rid of than others. Getting a Creeper can be a pain in the neck to get rid of and create unnecessary consternation in an otherwise light-hearted game.

Mechanics: 4 of 5. Overall, the simple nature of the game is a huge bonus. Especially because the simple rule of Draw One, Play One can quickly become a convoluted mess as more and more rules are played on top of one another. There are even rules that impact other rules, such as Inflation which adds numbers to all the other rules. Mechanically, it works well, and it’s up to the players to keep it straight.

Replayability: 5 of 5. Fluxx really is never the same way twice. There are very few 'strategies' that are even applicable to Fluxx. And, in most games, players don’t get to hang on to too many cards, so even if a successful strategy is devised, it can be very hard to implement. As a result, you are left with what feels like seat-of-your-pants play that can be very engaging.

Spite: 3 of 5. Some spite exists in Fluxx. There are definitely Actions that let you attack other players or steal their Keepers. These cards are not as common as in, say, Munchkin, but are frequent enough that every player can expect to see two or three during the course of a normal game.

Overall: 3.5 of 5. If you want strategy, depth, the ability to see plans come to fruition, or many meaningful choices, you will be highly disappointed in Fluxx. If you want light, easy to learn, portable zaniness, then Fluxx may be the way to go. Like I said, I consider it one of the best line games. If you have to quit a game of Fluxx in the middle, oh well. If you have to quit a game of Agricola in the middle ... riots.

See this review (with pictures), and my other travels through board game geekery, at the Giant Fire Breathing Robot!

by malarrama

No nos engañemos, los juegos son como las mujeres. Por mucho que la belleza resida en el interior (en la mecánica del mismo) lo cierto es que si demostramos nuestro primer interés por ellos no es sino por su aspecto. Hay juegos cuya tema ya despierta en nosotros simpatías, nos hace tilín, nos pone ‘palotes’. Para muchos es oir hablar de zombis, elfos o ferrocarriles alemanes y no caber en los pantalones. En mi caso hay varios asuntos que me interesan y uno de ellos es todo lo relacionado con la antigua Roma. Es por ello que resulta lógico que adquiriese un juego que se basa en el periodo de la República dominado por Lucio Cornelio Sila. El juego se llama Sylla y está editado por Ystari, la casa francesa caracterizada por la alta calidad lúdica de sus productos y por su obcecación en poner la letra “i griega” en todos y cada uno de sus títulos.

No voy a entrar a comentar las instrucciones salvo por el hecho de que, pese a no ser complicadas, están explicadas de forma algo raruna sobre todo en los que a la preparación del juego se refiere. No estaría mal que los señores de Ystari revisasen la organización del manual, la verdad. Otra cosa curiosa, una memez, pero si no lo digo me muero, es que durante el juego cobran cierto interés la secta cristiana. Resulta curioso, digo, porque el cristianismo no apareció en Roma hasta casi dos siglos después de la muerte de Sila…, pero bueno que esto es un juego, no un tratado de Mircea Eliade.

Las mecánicas son sencillas, pero su combinación dan como resultado situaciones bastante apetecibles. El juego funciona como un reloj y la interacción entre jugadores es notable, tanto en el ámbito de la colaboración como de la traición. Se nota que estamos ante un juego muy meditado y pulido, un juego testeado y equilibrado como debe ser pese a que algunos piensen que el marcador de hambruna sea demasiado severo.

Uno de los mejores factores de Sylla es la capacidad que ha tenido su autor para conseguir que el tema no parezca pegado. Ciertamente las acciones, las fases, decisiones y consecuencias de cada una de las acciones tienen una clara implicación con el tema. Un punto muy a favor y que, desgraciadamente, pocas veces se llega a ver tan bien imbricado en un tablero de eurogame.

Por otro lado el juego favorece movimientos tácticos y estratégicos, auna competitividad sin desechar ciertos detalles de cooperación, permite optar por múltiples canales a la hora de elaborar una estrategia y tiene cierto grado de profundidad sin dejar de ser familiar. Vamos un poco de todo y todo bueno.

Los materiales son correctos aunque tampoco extraordinarios. Se echa de menos un tablero más grande donde pudieran haberse colocado todas las tarjetas cómodamente así como unos marcadores de puntuación más pequeños pues se solapan en el tanteador. El apartado gráfico está bien, demasiado oscuro para mi gusto, pero correcto.

Ciertamente se trata de un juego bastante estimable, bastante más de lo que sugieren sus puntuaciones en la BGG, que merece que se le den más oportunidades (como a ‘El Platanito’).

by chaotic_soliton

My Perspective: I am an adventure game fanatic. I play Descent, Runebound, A touch of evil, Prophecy, Heroquest etc... Most any game where each player has a character/hero and has at least a modicum of relevant decision-making (I’m not looking at you Talisman and Dungeonquest). I most often will play these games with my wife (non-gamer generally) and two sons (ages 9 and 8) though I will occasionally play them with our infrequent play group (i.e. geeky adult men). I have not ever played D&D more for a lack of opportunity and time commitment. My review is based upon two games with four players, me, my wife and my two sons.

Aesthetics: More so than any other genre, I believe components for an adventure game require a higher standard. The whole point of the game is to visualize yourself doing something that gets your adrenaline going and so in this area I am a tough customer.

Cards & Tokens - Castle Raveloft(CR) in my opinion is not the best in this area. Compared to A touch of evil or Descent, CR is much worse because most of the cards and tokens do not have pictures on them. This may seem like a small nitpick but I find that it really slows down gameplay. Most of these games involve having several (more than 3) cards in front of you that do different things. After reading through the cards once, you want to have a way to quickly remember which card does what and I find that the pictures on the cards are a key to remembering, especially for my sons. In CR, I end up re-reading the cards on each of my turns rather than looking at the picture of the ax and remembering that has slightly higher damage than the sword as in Descent. Also, the monster cards that do have pictures, are not in color. This doesn’t affect gameplay but come on WOTC, you are not games workshop.

Figures - The sculpts look good, though I do not like the soft style plastic. Mainly because I do not have the option of repositioning the figures with the hot/cold water technique. I will just have to pretend that those curved swords are supposed to be that way. However I do like the different colors of plastic used on the monsters and heroes to help distinguish and give variety to the board for those of use without the time to paint all of the figure before the first play.

Board - I like the random tile board as I find that it really adds to the tension (one reason FFG’s Doom is still played at my house). However, again, I have to ding them in the design because of how the interlocking parts of the board sometimes cut through images on the tiles. The Arcane Circle is not a complete circle as the interlocking edge cuts through. Doesn’t that mean the Demon breaks free and eats the wizard? I am not sure if I have a way to fix this but I do think the Descent dungeons look better without the exposed connectors.

Cost - Excellent value. I am a bit concerned that the cardboard is more susceptible to tearing and marks than the nice laminated style cardboard in Flying Frog’s style productions but I do like the overall cost ($45.50 at timewellspent).


Gameplay: I will avoid deep rules discussion as the rules are online and discuss how it ‘feels.’

Attack/Powers - Most turns involve looking through your power cards and choosing an attack. All attacks involve rolling a d20, possibly at multiple targets, adding the attack value and comparing the to amour of the target/s. Save villians (think boss), most monsters have 1 or 2 wounds. Very straightforward and wonderful if you want to play with kids. You might think this is so simple it might be boring but the cards are all different ways to attack that give you a wealth of options. My wife was figuring out cool super combos with her Rogue character that really spiced things up. I have to give the designers real credit in this area in making such a simple mechanic varied enough to be interesting. Each of the characters also had a distinct feel. It is tough to tell after only two complete plays but the variety for each character seems to be high.

Turn sequence - The turns can become very involved as there are several steps and it matters what order you perform the steps in. Drawing an encounter card first is important because it might produce monster or trap which will activate later that turn. Adding a villian to the mix makes it even more involved. We found the turns non-intuitive (i.e. I had to keep referencing the exact order) though not burdensomly so. This will get better with more plays.

Incentives - With my young kids playing, it quickly became a race to see who could level up first. The incentive to continue exploring is that if you place a monster then you receive the experience for it regardless of who kills it. The incentive to kill a monster is that you receive a treasure. These carrots keep even the most selfish player at least partially working for the group.

Variety - One of the keys to adventure games is the variety of events that can occur. The encounter deck did and excellent job of mixing things up not just with traps and monsters but with other interesting variations. One event made each of us place a monster at an open dungeon corridor. We each placed our monsters as far away as possible as we were busy fighting a boss and destroying his artifact. Then the next encounter moved us all two dungeon tiles towards the entrance, putting us in range of the aforementioned monsters, which almost cost us the game when we had it easily in hand a moment before.

Scenarios- I read through the adventure book and there are two scenarios for solo play and the rest (I believe 11) for groups of 2-5. The variety is decent though I look forward to user generated content and further expansions.


Summary - Love it. Why? For me it hits a sweet spot. It felt like just enough crunchiness in rules to excite my imagination with the options available without having a Arkham Horror level decision diagram. It also was a hit with my wife (no small feat) and kids. I can count on one hand the number of games my wife has been willing to play twice in a row and none of the others had a miniature dragon involved. It also fills in the spot in my game collection previously filled by HeroQuest. A no-overload game in a reasonable time where cooperation is important (and fun), i.e. not races like Runebound or Prophecy. I also have found that it is a great game with my kids. In spite of my critiques from earlier, I would have to say if you are interested at all, by the theme or the idea you should buy it. I cannot imagine not getting your money’s worth.

by cordeiro

After perusing the mostly tepid Candamir reviews, I realized that there were a few good ones written by players that maybe haven’t played the game a lot. Maybe they had a bad initial impression. Maybe it’s just not their type of game. Well, I’ve actually played this game quite a few times, probably because my wife really likes it. (See her favorite games here.) I’m not sure exactly how many times we’ve played, but I’d ballpark it at 30 to 40 times. So, here’s a rosier review from an experienced player.

Overview
Candamir is a spinoff of The Settlers of Catan, focusing entirely on the life of a collection of settlers in Catan’s first settlement. The characters come from Rebecca Gable’s novel, Die Siedler von Catan (or so I’ve heard – I don’t know German, so I can’t verify this). Other than collecting resources and trading them in for victory points, the mechanics are nothing like the original Settlers.

The Characters
Each player starts the game with a character card. Players have 4 attributes – strength, prowess, agility, and charisma. The attributes' levels vary from character to character, ranging from 0-2 in each category, and can be improved throughout the course of the game. Additionally, the characters have special abilities that allow them to operate more efficiently in certain circumstances. The character cards give the game a nice RPG feel without getting bogged down in number crunching or dice rolling. The game comes with 4 different male characters and 4 cards with identical attributes, but with female characters instead. If you’re the creative type, you can even make your own character card using the Candamir Character Editor. (This really is a great tool that allows you to highly customize your character yet still keep your character’s power in check.)

http://www.catanadventures.com/Candamir-Editor_Eng/

The Character Board
After choosing a character, you place your character onto your own little character board, which allows you to track attribute upgrades, your potions supply, and your health level. It also includes a handy guide on the bottom to explain the pros and cons of the various creatures you’ll encounter along the way.

The Game Board, Part One
The game board is compact, yet not crowded. It’s divided into two sections. The larger section represents the wilderness surrounding the settlement and is divided into squares. The settlement itself takes up 1 square space in the middle of the board. The left portion of the board is the forest, where settlers go for lumber. The middle section is the plains, where settlers capture animals for their hides. The right section of the board is the mountains, where settlers mine for ore. The squares are covered by tiles that provide resources, experience points to upgrade your attributes, and victory points. The number of tiles varies depending on the number of players – the more players, the more tiles.

Choosing which tiles to go for is where the strategy comes in. I’ve read a few reviews that have pooh poohed the strategy in this game, but I honestly believe Candamir can get strategic, especially if you pay attention to where the other players are going and what your trading options are. Pay attention to your special abilities as well. They usually allow you to move a greater distance depending on what section of the board you’re in. Before heading out into the great unknown, you get to peek at 2 of the facedown tiles. You may choose to head towards any tile on the board, even if you haven't seen it yet. This is again another opportunity for strategy. For example, do you go for 2 resources or 1 resource and 2 experience points? Memorization is key in this stage of the game. If you can remember all of the tiles you look at, you’ll not only know where the best options are for future moves, but also what your opponents are going after.

The Movement Cards
Once you pick your destination, you’ll need to actually travel there. It’s not as easy as it sounds because there are all sorts of creatures and adventures you’ll encounter along the way. Each movement card gives you 4 choices – up, down, left, and right – and some of those choices force you into an encounter.

Most of the encounters involve killing an unfriendly wild animal that’s blocking your path. Apparently, the island of Candamir is infested with snakes, wolves, and bears. This is where your attributes come in to play. To kill one of these animals, you’ll need to add one of your attributes to a die roll. If you roll high enough, you’ll defeat the animal and continue along your merry way, often with a fresh hide or two for your troubles. However, if you fail to slay the beast, you’ll suffer a decrease in health, which slows your movement rate.

Besides animals, you may encounter Candamir himself. (Yes, Candamir is a settler, not the name of the settlement.) My wife refers to this option as “fighting Candamir” because if you choose to move in that direction, Candamir compels you to help him chop wood; you don’t have a choice in the matter. This is another attribute plus die roll situation. If you’re successful, you get some lumber. If you fail, it’s another hit to your health level.

The final type of encounter is the Adventure. If you choose to undertake an adventure, you’ll have to select one of the 4 available adventure cards, which come with a nice, little story. Again this is an attribute plus roll situation. If you’re successful, you get the reward on the card. If you fail, you suffer the penalty. The adventures get more difficult as the game progresses.

Some reviewers have said that the encounters really slow you down, especially if you fail them. I respectfully disagree. True, if you choose to avoid the encounter and move in a safer direction, you may have to wait until your next turn to reach your destination. But if you’re willing to take some calculated risks, the encounters can really speed up your game. Once you build up some experience, you can actually get more resources from encounters than from your destination tile. And after taking a few health hits, it’s better to rest for a turn and completely restore your health than grind out the rest of the game at reduced health.

Besides encounters, the movement cards also allow you to pick up ingredients – herbs, mushrooms, and honey – that can be combined later to give you a boost.

The Game Board, Part Two
Now that you have a handful of resources and ingredients, it’s time to head back to the settlement and trade them in for victory points. This is where the second part of the game board comes into play. Several settlers have offered their services (represented by victory points) in exchange for fulfilling items on their wish list. Apparently, everyone wants swords, chests, and window coverings. Luckily, all of those items can be made from the resources you collected in your travels. As you fulfill their wish list requests, you place victory points onto the board. The wish lists must be fulfilled in order, so the items you can build and trade in will change as the game progresses. It’s important to make note of what’s available now and what’s available later so you can plan your future destinations accordingly. Some of the settlers also grant you a bonus victory point if you’ve filled more wish list requests than other players have. Again, this is an opportunity to plan ahead and maybe take a risk. Do you focus on one settler’s list and guarantee a bonus point, or do you spread out and keep your options open? There’s also a bonus spot for the player who has completed the most adventures, so that’s another angle to play up. Besides trading with the settlers, you can also trade with other players. This is one of the only opportunities for player interaction, and it honestly doesn’t happen that often.

While you’re in the settlement, you can also use those ingredients to brew up one of Bridgitta’s potions (to increase your die roll), a healing potion (to increase your health), or some mead (to get your opponents drunk and reduce their health as they recover from their hangover). The mead is the only direct attack on opponents, and it only works if you’re tied or behind. (Maybe the Settlers robber is also in charge of brewing the mead.)

The game ultimately ends when one player has placed all 10 victory points on the board.

Play Time and Scalability
The play time increases as you add more players. I would say it’s in the neighborhood of 30 minutes with 2 players, 45 minutes with 3 players, and an hour with 4 players. The 3-player and 4-player tiles provide more stuff to speed up the game a bit. With 2 players, it has a faster pace but can feel like an arms race at times. With 4 players, the game tends to drag a little due to a lot of down time in between turns. Plus, the best tiles disappear quickly. I feel that 3 players strikes the best balance. You can also adjust the play time by choosing a different number of victory points. However, the game speeds up a bit as you go along due to increased experience levels.

Overall Impressions
Candamir feels like an RPG version of Settlers. I like this game, probably more than the average player, but I wouldn’t consider it a favorite. The components are wood and good quality cardboard. No real complaints there. Overall, I recommend this game, whether you’re a Settlers fan or not.

by BethH

When my daughter unwrapped her gifts last Christmas, I was a little surprised to find a rather large bright yellow box with German words all over it. Needless to say Zoff im Hühnerhof arrived in our house before discovering that the world of Board Games stretched beyond what they kept stocked at the local Toys’R’Us. I admit that I originally dismissed it as just another kids game and it wasn’t thought about again until New Years Eve where it was traditional to take a new board game to a relatives house to help pass the time until midnight and so the big yellow box (still in cellophane) came with us.

My little girl unwrapped the box as the adults were busy gossiping and I’m not even exaggerating when everyone in the room stopped to admire the innards of the big yellow box. I had certainly not seen anything like it before, it was so well constructed. The whole game is built into the box making set up as simple as removing the lid and beginning the game. The artwork in the game is right out of a children’s book and appealed to everyone and the painted wooden playing pieces looked and felt great in your hand. Before we knew it we were fishing out the English rules and eagerly having a go.

And With a Sweeping Gesture...

Zoff im Hühnerhof is a simple game by Haba where you take on the role of a hungry chicken. Everyone starts with a set amount of grain and the winner is the person with the most grain at the end of the game. You feed the chickens by placing a piece of your grain onto Farmer Fred’s scoop and flicking it onto the board, so there is a little bit of dexterity involved here. The grain lands (hopefully) somewhere in the farmyard and the number of flowers you land upon determine how many squares you can move your chicken to pick up more food. Any squares with caterpillars on them already have grain on them before the game begins. Some squares have feathers on them as well as flowers or caterpillars. If you land your grain on a crow feather then that means you have to move the crow along the fence. Of course, crows are never good news no matter how cute they are drawn and this one shows how close the game is to its end. When the crow reaches the end of the fence a little fox pops its head through the hole there and begins the next phase of the game.

Obviously, no chicken in its right mind is going to want to strut around the farmyard when there’s a fox about so now it becomes a mad dash for who can get back to the coop first! You still have to fling your grain into the box to move your chickens, but you are no longer allowed to pick any extra up. This means that the further away from the coop you are the more expensive it is going to be to get back there, so you could end up spending the majority of the grain you collected in phase one - so in a game where the idea is to collect the most grain it may not be a great strategy!

The game ends when everyone is back in the coop and everyone counts up how much grain they have left.

And Lots of Flapping...

The dexterity part of the game takes some getting used to as we found the grain gets everywhere that it shouldn’t be but overall I think it’s really fun. I was glad to have a game that I could happily play with my daughter and not find it tedious, drawn out or badly made like the kind of children’s games I had been used to up to then (Monopoly, Operation, Pop-up Pirate - you know the kind). So this sparked the beginning of the board game revolution for my family, we have since discovered all sorts of family games thanks to BGG and the cousin that sent us the big yellow box in the first place. So I suppose that where other people say that Carcassonne or Settlers of Catan were their gateway game, Zoff im Hühnerhof was ours and I can’t recommend it enough for families with small children. We are actively building a collection that we love and we set aside one night a week where we all sit down and play a few - all thanks to Farmer Fred.

by Freitag

Hello! I want to talk about this game, one of the worst selling miniatures systems in the history of GW. First I will explain where I'm coming from. I've been a grognard for about 20 years, I started playing miniatures in 1994 with Man O War (I bought it 2 weeks before they announced it was being discontinued.) I later played most of GW's games in the 1990s, though I slowly lost interest in the later editions of Warhammer and Warhammer 40k. So in short, I know GW, I know GW rules, and I played a lot of games of just about every type.

So, I will start by saying that Epic 40,000, or Epic 40k 3rd edition as it was otherwise known, was the BEST set of minis rules GW ever wrote. Now let me explain why.

When the game was designed, the goal of the game was to allow epic battles to be fought. This would mean large scale forces, so the standard formation, a Detachment, is about the equivalent of a 40k Squad in 2nd Edition 40k. Actually it's about 1/10 the price for a unit, and 1/10 is the scale they are aiming at. This is a Warhammer 40k game zoomed out to 10 times farther out. Also this reason, everyone has one hit point. You get hit, you die. The only exceptions are units with the save power, who get a 50/50 save, and the Titans who have hit points.

So at this scale troops need to be abstracted, a lot. This is where the design begins to shine. They keep every unit down to a single stat line, with special abilities limited to a listing of the special power, and all special powers for all units are on one sheet of paper. This was a great aid, cutting down on the special rules checking slowdown that plagued 40k. Even the Titans, the equivalent to the high cost heroes of 40k games, is just a simple sheet, with no unique special rules for every figure. This lets you focus on moving the troops and fighting.

So you form an army of several detachments, and will fight the battle with them. A standard turn takes 5 phases (They say 4, but shooting is split into normal detachments, and Titans.) Each phase has initiative drawn,

1. Movement: One side moves its troops, then the other. Pretty straightforward. One odd bit, if you move too close to an enemy, he gets a free shot at you. You can only safely move up to an enemy if you are Assaulting, and then in the Assault phase, after getting shot at.

2: Shooting: This time, you alternate firing DETACHMENTS, and since firing is not simultaneous, who shoots when can matter.

2.5 Titans Shooting: More of the same. But Titans are really strong, so having them fire last seems a little fair.

3: Assault: One side moves all assaulting detachments then and resolves all assaults (troops in contact) and then firefights (troops near each other.)

4: Rally phase: This is when both sides roll to remove blast markers (representing recovering from getting shot up,) recovering from broken status (if they lost an assault or firefight,) repairs rolls for titans, and then Victory Checks, where morale can be gained or lost based on the mission.

Details of these phases. Shooting is adding up firepower, then checking a chart where you check the cover level of the troops, and that says how many dice you roll. You roll, and each die that can beat the armor of a target in the detachment will get one hit.

Assaulting is adding you assault values of the troops, plus 1 for each nearby soldier for support. You then each roll 1 die, adding to your roll if you had more assault value, more psykers, less blast markers, etc. High roll wins, and the more you win by, the more likely you will kill their troops, and the less likely you will lose men. But in assaults, armor values don't matter, so Imp guards can get lucky and melta-bomb a tank, and a losing Carnifex may still slaughter a squad of men. The loser is then reduced to broken status, and must retreat, if he's still near your men after his retreat move, they die. Titans are an exception.

Fire fights follow the same formula, but kill far less men.

Also one of the best things in this game that I haven't touched on is Blast Markers. These come from combat results, and represent damaged troops, scared men, wounded troops, etc. It lowers their effectiveness, and if they can't remove it, the army loses morale. Basically troops can't just stay on the front, soaking fire, with no effect. Eventually they become ineffective. This kind of realistic effect is almost never seen in GW games, where a more comic book kind of realism is more common.

In short, this game focused on LARGE battles, and kept its focus rigidly. Few special rules, few exceptions, and as little to slow the game down as possible. At the same time, the result feels more realistic to me, a guy who has war gamed for years, than most other minis systems. Also this game was fast. My roommate and I could set up, play, and clean up a game in under 4 hours, and for miniatures, that's impressive.

So what went wrong? For starters, GW tried to remove the Knight Titans and the Squat armies from the setting. Given that the Knights in particular were very popular in Epic added to a backlash. Among my friends, the Warhammer players hated it, saying it didn't let them specialize enough, and that there was not enough detail. My wargaming friends, on the other hand, LOVED it, praising it's speed and comparative realism.

In the end the game tanked, and I bought three 15,000 point armies for under 350 bucks from disgruntled players of the older edition (I don't even want to think about the retail price.) I can still play it with friends, and I provide both sides. But I wish it had sold well, because when GW saw that, they returned to the higher detail and slower play in Epic: Armageddon (though it's still a lot faster than Titan Legions.)

by SeanXor

My wife is my primary gaming partner, so when I am looking to get a game I always consider if it is a game that we can play together. For the most part my track record is really good at finding games that we both like. Occasionally, games that should have been a good match fall short and in the case of Cyclades, it was a complete flop.
I played Cyclades a couple of months ago and I absolutely LOVED it. I had what turned out to be faulty reasoning, for my wife might like it or at least find it playable. We played Cyclades a couple of times and it turns out that she HATED it. After the second play, she was done with the game. This review is not a rules explanation or an objective analysis of the game’s virtues and faults. This is a comparison of why I loved the game and why she hated it.

I loved The Conflict: I really like games with direct conflict. I really liked that conflict happens on multiple levels in this game. I like how even though there is no actual conflict the competition during the auction can really like conflict as player butt heads against each other. I also really like the combat system. I like that the 0-3 die is the only modifier to the number of units, so that the one with the majority has the advantage but it is not a done deal. I also liked the constant sniping. If someone was left to their own devices then the game would end in like 15 minutes. The game is all about players tripping each other up.

She hated The "Screwage": The down side to the direct conflict in this game, is that it can really mess people up. She found it really frustrating when someone was willing to go higher than her on the auction she really wanted to win. What she disliked the most was how high stakes the combat could be. She hated that if she built a metropolis, and had it defended with one unit someone could hire the Pegasus, fly in, and take over the metropolis that she had spent multiple turns building. She does not mind direct conflict in games, but apparently only in games when conflict is the point of the game. Since the way to win this game was build to metropolises, she really hated the constant meddling with her attempts at building.

I loved Multiple Strategies: One of the things I liked about this game is the openness of it. There are multiple ways that players can go about playing the game. I like how players have to decide during the auction phase how much money they were willing to spend and still be able to pull off all the other actions they wanted to do. However, if someone else wanted the favor of the same god or if the god that fit into a player’s strategy for that turn was not available, then players have to adapt on the fly. I really like that need for flexibility and how there are lots of different ways a player can use their money on a turn.

She hated Not Knowing What to Do: What I saw as dynamic flexibility in the game she saw as overwhelming confusing. With so many options she felt unsure how to best proceed, and she really disliked it when her plans did not come together and she had to figure something else out. Instead of finding that fun, she found it frustrating.

I loved The Game Being Scalable: I have played the game with every possible player combination and I thought it worked well with 2-5 players. While I personally liked it best with four, I thought the game works well with all number of players. I was surprised by how well the two player game worked. I thought the modification of letting the players bid on two roles worked well. I liked how having two roles opened up a lot of extra possibilities, and the addition of a third metropolis to the victory condition made the game length just right.

She hated The 2 player Game: While she did dislike it less with more, she really did not care for the two player game because she felt like I was always out to get her. With multiple players all of the interference was spread out, instead of two people focusing on winning while keeping the other person from doing so.

I loved The Combination of Euro and American Style Games: For me the best part of the game is that it took a very euro game auction mechanic and put in a plastic piece heavy game, with lots of random elements, and a slug fest that is all more comfortable in an American game. This combination was perfect for me and it really drew me into the game.

She hated The combination of Euro and American Style Games: My wife prefers euro games, but she has played and enjoyed a fair share of ameritrash. However the combination just did not work for her. If Cyclades was a euro auction game about building up a metropolis she would have loved it. If Cyclades was a conflict game about creating an island Empire through conquest, she (probably) would have had fun playing it. The combination of the two created something that she just could not get behind.

So Cyclades was a bust. This story has a happy ending though. I am going to be able to trade Cyclades for another game that I am excited about playing, and one that we will (hopefully) both enjoy.

by thirdman

[Note: This is a cross post of a review which I wrote on my blog. I am a relatively new boardgamer and this is my first ever review. Comments are welcome. Thanks!]

First of all, this game has basically nothing to do with Confucius the person nor Confucianism. If you are looking for a game to test or use your superb knowledge of the Four Books and Five Classics, you will be grossly disappointed. That said, this is quite an interesting and good game.

WHAT THE GAME IS ABOUT

Released in 2008, the game is designed by Alan Paull and can play 3-5 players. Based on our several 5 player games, the game lasts about 2 hours.

The game is set during the Ming Dynasty in China which ruled China from 1368 to 1644. This is the time in China where arts and culture flourished and Confucianism once again played a significant role in the governance of the country. It is also a time of great explorations, e.g. by the great Admiral Zheng He, and all sorts of enterprises such as reconquering "barbarian" lands and the rebuilding and extension of the Great Wall. It is a great time for China, enjoying great culture, trade and superb military and technological might.

The object of the game is to get the most Victory Points (VP). No surprises there and the game is essentially a worker placement game. You get VPs by controlling the Ministries, by invading other countries and by discovery of new lands. You also get points at the end of the game if you are the best in either having most control on the Ministries, most armies deployed to invade other lands or if you have most fleet for discovery of foreign land.

THE COMPONENTS

Great components. Thick, colourful and well formatted game board that opens completely flat on the table. The wooden pieces are of good quality, the cardboard chits are thick and sturdy and the card stocks are a bit flimsy but still feels good while held. All in all, very good component quality. It also comes with a play-aid for each player which we found very useful as a reference.



The game board is divided into three main sections. The first section at the top is the Action section where players place their action cubes. Flanking the Action section, on the left side are the boxes for the Imperial examination and on the right side is the VP track and below the VP track is the gift track. The middle section are the three ministries, the Bingbu - Ministry of the Army, The Hubu - Ministy of Finance and The Gongbu - Ministry of Public Works. The bottom section comprises of two sub-sections, the left side is the Invasion of Foreign Land and the right side is the Discovery of Distant Land.



The Rulebook is well written, easy to follow and well illustrated.

A note about money in this game. Unlike many other games, money in this game is printed on the card called the Confucius Card. On the card, the money is indicated but the card also indicate Licenses. You need licenses to send armies to foreign lands and also to discover distant lands. The interesting thing is the number of license is the inverse of the number of money so that they both always add up to four. If the card contains 3 monies, it will only contain 1 license and vice-versa. And you won’t get change if you do not have the exact number of monies or licenses when you pay.



THE GAMEPLAY

The game plays over several rounds. There are 3 endgame conditions and the game ends if any one of them is met, 1) when all the ministries have been resolved, 2) when the 9th piece of the Great Wall has been built and 3) When there are no more candidates for the Imperial Examination.

Each round consists of 5 phases as follows:

1. Count Gift Phase

2. Choose Chief Minister Phase

3. Action Phase

4. Court Phase

5. End Round Phase

1. Count Gift Phase

The most interesting mechanic of this game is the Gift Giving system (which I will discuss later). In this phase, each player counts how many gifts he has given and received. This will determine how many action cubes he can have, which ranges from 3 cubes if he did not give and receive any gifts, 4 cubes if he has given and received one or two gifts and 5 cubes if he has given and received 3 or more gifts. Notice that I used the word "and", which means all the gifts given and received are summed up.

As you can see, the game encourages the player to give gifts, which also mirror the real world... the more widely networked you are will enable you to do more things.

2. Choose Chief Minister Phase

At the beginning of the game, the Chief Minister is chosen at random. Thereafter, the current Chief Minister will choose another player and pass the role to that player. The advantage of being the Chief Minister is that it will have an extra action (i.e. Imperial Favor) at the end after all players have taken their actions and this Imperial Favor action can be played on a repeated box and the player does not have to pay two cubes (more on this later). However, the disadvantage is that the Chief Minister will always go last as the player on his left will play first. Turn order is very important in this game.

3. Action Phase

This is, as in most if not all games, the meat of the game. Each player can take as many actions as his number of action cubes allow and each player will take one action clockwise until all players passes. Players must use up all their available action cubes. No action cubes can be carried over.

However, there are two other actions that does not need action cubes. They are the actions allowed in the Emperor Reward cards (which you can get by invading foreign lands or by discovering distant lands - discussed later) and the "free" transfer action (discussed below).

Players take their action by placing their action cubes in the action boxes at the top of the board. Notice that some boxes contain paired actions (e.g. Bribe official and Secure official are both in the same box). If you want to take another action in the same box, you need to place two cubes instead of one. All actions can be taken more than once (by placing two cubes each time) except for the Commercial Income action which can only be taken once per round.



The actions that the players can take are as follows:

A. Bribe Officials - at the beginning of the game during set-up, 3 official tiles will be placed in each of the three ministries. Under the official tiles, there is a cost to bribe him. If you take this action, you pay the cost indicated at the bottom of the tile (minus one if you have a bribed official in Hubu). After you have paid the cost, you put your marker by its side to indicate that this is a bribed but unsecured official. It is important to know that to have an unsecured official is a risk because other players may remove your marker when some conditions are met (e.g. the other player’s candidate has won the Imperial Examination or when some Emperor’s Reward Card allows an action to remove unsecured markers).

One of the advantages of having bribed officials is that you get discounts, for example, if you have a bribed official in Hubu, you get to pay one money less when you bribe the next official. If you have a bribed official in Bingbu you pay only 4 licenses to recruit one army instead of 6 and if you have a bribed official in Gongbu your ships costs less (depending on the number of ships you buy).

B. Secure Official. Note that this is a paired action and if you want to play this action, you need two action cubes (unless you are the Chief Minister using the Imperial Favour action). Therefore, if you want to bribe and official and then secure him, you need to play a total of 3 action cubes. The cost of securing an official is the same as the cost of bribing him, that means, to secure an official, you pay two times the printed cost. Of course, you don’t have to bribe and secure the official consecutively. You can bribe this turn and then secure in the next turn (provided your unsecured official has not been removed!). Once you have secured your official, place the marker standing up. A player can only secure his own official. He cannot pay and secure other player’s officials.

C. Nominate Student - the player pays 2 monies and places one of his marker on the Imperial Examination box. The first player to do this places the marker on the red box (because in case of a tie, the player on the red box wins). This action cannot be played in the first round. Remember that!

D. Force Imperial Examination - normally, the Imperial Examination will resolve by itself if both the spots are occupied by players. However, if there is only one player marker there, the player can force an Imperial Examination by paying 2 monies. This will be resolved during the Imperial Examination resolution phase.

E. Buy Junks - The players buys between 1 to 4 junks (ships) and depending if he has a bribed official in the Gongbu, he pays the costs as indicated on the table in the rulebook/player aid. He then places his junks on his shipyard (corresponding to his player colour).

F. Start a Voyage - The player pays one License per junk to start a voyage and he can move as many of his available junks at his shipyard. Every fifth junk completes one voyage and the player takes the victory point chits of his liking, returns all the five junks to the supply and place his marker on that distant land. The player also received an Emperor’s Reward card (very useful! Don’t overlook this).



Do note that each player can only voyage to one distant land once. There are in total five distant lands, so the maximum a player can get in that section is only 5. Other players can still voyage to a distant land already discovered by other players. He won’t get the victory points but will still get an Emperor’s Reward card if that is still available. This is an important rule not to be missed.

G. Recruit an Army - The player pays 6 licenses (reduced to 4 if he has a bribed official in Bingbu) and places one army in his military colony space. One action recruits only one army, up to a maximum of 6 armies.

H. Invade Foreign Land - The player pay the cash indicated in the Foreign Land tile and move one army to an empty box on the tile. One action moves only one army. Each box can only have one army but several players can own different boxes on the tile. Victory points as indicated in the box is NOT scored yet until the invasion is resolved in a later round. Also, the Emperor Reward card is NOT taken yet until the invasion is resolved in a later round.

I. Buy Gifts - Now we come to the interesting and main uniqueness of this game. Players can now buy one not available gifts by paying the monies stated on the gift card and make it available.



J. Give Gift - Players taking this action can give one available gift to one player.

The power of gifts is significant because the player that has received your gift are obliged to you in several ways, for example, he is obliged to support your Imperial Examination candidate (unless the other competing player has given him a higher value gift than you), he cannot bribe more officials in any ministry than you (or if he has more, he cannot increase it), in the ministry resolution stage, if he is the minority, he has to lend you his support if you are tied in the leading, etc.

However, gifts can be canceled in several ways, for example, you can give the other player a higher value gift, give an additional two more Confucius card to support the player’s Imperial Examination candidate, support the player during the Ministry Resolution phase etc.

For more on gifts, please refer to the Rulebook which is clear.

K. Transfer Influence - The player replaces his marker with another player’s marker leaving the status as the same (secured or unsecured). This action cancels any gifts from the other player and this is a free action.

L. Petition the Emperor - this option is only for advance play.

M. Commercial Income - this is a very useful action as you this is how you earn more Confucius cards (for money and licenses). You pay up to 4 monies and get monies +1 Confucius card. E.g. you pay 2 monies, you get to draw 3 Confucius cards. If you pay 3 monies, you get 4 cards etc. The maximum is 4 monies for 5 cards.

You can only take this action once per round. You can’t even play this as an action with the Imperial Favour if you have already played this action.

N. Tax income - This is clear. Just take 2 Confucius cards.

O. No Action - put one action cube here if you do not want to take any actions.

P. Imperial Favour - this is for the Chief Minister. Take this action only after everyone else passes.

4. Court Phase

The court phase is when the following are resolved:

a. Build the Great Wall - this has two effects. Number one, it is a time marker because the game ends when the 9th wall is built. Secondly, it is also a marker for invasion to happen (explained in the Invasion step below).

b. Imperial Examination - Imperial examination happens under two conditions, either both the spots in the Imperial Examination box is occupied or if only one spot is occupied, a player played a Force Examination action. When the Imperial Examination happens, each player beginning from the player to the Chief Minister’s left will contribute one Confucius card to either one of the player.

If a player has received a gift from a player that has a candidate, then he is obliged to contribute to the player’s candidate, unless he has received a higher value card from the other candidate. If the gifts are of equal value, then he chooses which one. He can choose to cancel the gift by contributing two more cards, paying a total of 3 Confucius cards and the gift is canceled. All players MUST contribute one card if he is able to.

The player that has the highest monies in total will win the Examination and he can occupy an empty space on the ministry indicated on the candidate tile. If the tile says "Any Ministry", then he is free to choose which ministry to go to. If the ministry is already full, he can choose to replace any unsecured minister tile.

c. Ministry Resolution - if any of the ministries are now fully bribed, then the ministry is to be resolved accordingly. The player that has bribed the most minister becomes the Minister and gets the Victory Points indicated. The second most become the Secretary and takes the Victory points indicated. If in a tied position, then the player looks at the other bribed ministers and see who he has given gifts to. The player that has received the gift from him will have to lend his support and after lending his support, the gift is canceled.

d. Invasion - There are two occasions when this is resolved, i.e. either all the boxes in the foreign land tile has been fully occupied or when the wall is built up to a certain mark. When the wall is built up to a certain mark (one soldier, two soldier and three soldier marks), if all the boxes on the tile is occupied by players armies, then all players will receive victory points indicated in the box. If one or more of the boxes are not occupied, then none of the players will get any victory points. However, the player that occupies the box that has the Emperor Reward card still gets the Emperor Reward card no matter what.

5. End Round Phase

This is essentially an admin phase. Place one more official tile on empty ministry spots, each player discards down his Confucius card up to a maximum holding of four cards only (DON’T forget this), and return all action cubes to the players.

Then a new round begin by counting action cubes, choosing Chief Minister etc. etc. until the endgame events are triggered.

Overall, the gameplay is smooth and quite intuitive. There are minimal downtime between players and because the actions options are not too many, Analysis Paralysis prone players won’t display that symptom much.

THOUGHTS AND CONCLUSIONS

I will say that this is a medium weight game, with interesting options. What stands out of this game is the Gift mechanics. Well and timely use of it is very important, especially the strategic gift-giving to achieve a certain objective. Gift-giving is of paramount importance if the player is going for the Ministry strategy, i.e. you aim to score lots of points during the Ministry resolution phase.

There isn’t much luck factor and whatever luck factor in drawing the Confucius card is mitigated by the nature of the card itself, i.e. if it is low on money, it is high on licenses. The game depends on your devising a strategy to obtain the most points and use the gift giving mechanic to achieve that objective. In our experience, it is important to have a rather consistent strategy. Also, yes, control of Ministries do get a lot of points but Invasion and Voyages also do get quite a lot of points, not to mention the very powerful Emperor’s Reward cards!

The game is very engaging with lots of player interaction. You always have to watch out who controls what or wants to control what and you must also watch who has given gifts to whom and the changes in the gifts that may get played etc. Like any good strategy games, you need to anticipate other players strategies and if you are a good student of Sun Tzu, you will know that the best way to defeat the enemy is to defeat their strategy.

Overall, a really good game to play with people who likes heavier, meatier and less forgiving games.

by Kartigan

So this is my first negative review. I realize that all games are a matter of taste, party games especially, but frankly I just felt that I couldn’t keep quite any longer about how much I detest this truly terrible game. Before I start I just want to say that I don’t hate party games. I will happily play Taboo, Catch Phrase, Scategories, and many others. But as for Apples to Apples I’ve tried it now several times in different crowds and I just don’t enjoy the game at all.

Game Concept

For those of you who don’t know what Apples to Apples is, let me explain. Basically the game consists of two decks of cards. One is full of adverbs and adjectives such as “Fat”, “Weird”, “Angry”, “Obtuse”, etc. The other deck is full of nouns both proper and improper like “Adolf Hitler”, “House”, “George Washington”, etc.

Each player takes a hand of the noun cards and then one player is chosen to be the judge. That player flips over the top of the adjective deck and places it face-up on the table for everyone to see. Each player then secretly selects one of his noun cards that he believes goes best with the revealed adjective, and passes the card to the judge. The judge mixes them all up before looking at them (so he doesn’t know which card belongs to which person), and then chooses the one that he thinks is the “best” fit for the adjective.

The player who’s card was selected takes the adjective card as a reward, and all players draw a new card into their hand (to replace the one they just used), as well as have the option to discard an additional card from their hand to draw another. The player to the left of the judge becomes the new judge and reveals a new card, with play continuing in this manner until one player has amassed a pre-determined number of adjective cards in front of them. That player is the “winner”. I don’t remember what number the rules uses exactly, we’ve always just adjusted it based on how long of a game we want (usually less to make it shorter).

And that in a nutshell is how to play Apples to Apples.

The Reasons I Don’t Like This Game

I told you at the start this review would be a negative one . So let’s not waste any more time and just jump straight into why I don’t like this game.

1. The card in my head is always way funnier than the one in my hand.....

This is definitely my biggest issue with the game. The word I’m thinking I’d like to put in to match the adjective card is way better than anything in my hand. Same with when I’m judging, the adjective I want people to have to try and choose nouns for is always more interesting than the random card I happen to flip over. Way too often I find myself staring at my hand which seems to have zero cards that even remotely match the adjective card in the middle.

The game does include blank cards for you to write your own words on, but they are so few in comparison to the size of the deck that even if you try to use them they’ll hardly ever come up in a game. Even if they do, they never seem to be at the right time to use them with the right adjective.

I think what would actually improve this game vastly would be to do away with the cards and just give everyone a pen and paper. Then let the judge write a word down on his paper, and have the other players write words down to submit to him. This would allow for way more creativity, humor, and originality in the words people use. You could even say once a word is used you can’t use it again. But then again if you’re doing that.......what do you even need the game for?

2. Repetition, repetition, repetition.....

This is also a real weak-point of the game for me. It seems like every turn is the exact same thing over and over and over again. It never feels fun, fresh, or exciting.

Yes the adjective changes, and your hand changes very slowly, but it just feels like the same thing over and over again. I don’t usually get that feeling with party games, or if I do I don’t mind it. I’m not sure why this one gets so dull for me in this area, maybe it is the fact that there isn’t any kind of time pressure mechanic to make things tense, or that the variety is limited to only a couple of new words per round (one new adjective, one or two new cards for your hand). Whatever it is the game starts to feel incredibly monotonous very quickly for me.

3. Judging is often times way more random than anything else......

Because the judge is the only one who has any say in who’s card get picked, this ends up feeling rather arbitrary. The game has far more to do with knowing the judge and what they’ll like then it does picking the “best” card in your hand for the word on the table. As a result games end up feeling very random and disjointed.

I have played this game with several different groups of people so it isn’t just the crowd I’m playing it with either. Inevitably at various points people end up picking cards that leave everyone (including the person who’s card it is 1\2 the time) scratching their heads.

4. There is absolutely no competition......

Now wait just one second before you explode on me! “It’s a freakin’ party game man?!? Why the heck do you even care about competition?”

Well truth be told I really don’t. But even in a party game some amount of light-hearted competition between players or teams is fun. Whether it’s a “guys vs. girls” game of Catch Phrase or a “cutthroat” group of players sitting down to test their vocab against Grandma’s in Scategories; the good-natured ribbing back and forth between players is something I enjoy a great deal.

There is absolutely nothing even remotely like that in Apples to Apples. The times I’ve won I didn’t care, and most people who do win generally end up talking about weird cards of theirs that were picked by judges even when they made no sense whatsoever to the word at hand. Or possibly they just always managed to have the right cards in their hand at the right time and no one else did.

My point is that there isn’t any jovial teasing about who’s going to “win”. 99% of party games are ultimately very pointless, but sometimes it is because of that very fact that players get into over the top “competing” with each other. It’s all light-hearted, good-natured fun of course, but in Apples to Apples there seems to be no room for it since it is all so obviously random (be it the cards that are revealed\drawn or the “judging”). Because of that this game is missing a large element of party games I really enjoy.

Wrap Up

That about sums it up, I hope I haven’t offended anyone with my first negative review (I figured it was safe to start with a part game, but you never know). It is very rare for me to meet a game I don’t like at least somewhat but I suppose different people have different tastes as I know many people who really love this game. I however will never, ever play this game again (I kept giving it chances because so many different people I know liked it so much). If anyone has any comments on the format or technique of this review I’d like to hear them. Thanks for reading!

by pete belli

Any fan of Battle Cry who clicked on this article expecting another nuts-and-bolts review of this classic game is probably going to be disappointed. Several talented Geeks have already created an assortment of fine rule booklet/component quality/play experience reviews. I would like to approach Battle Cry from another angle.

This is a game that keeps on giving. The horizon is practically unlimited.

The basic structure of Battle Cry provides an excellent framework for the creation of quick, entertaining variants that can offer the board game design hobbyist a chance to have a little fun. The gifted Richard Borg has used his superior abilities to provide a blank canvas upon which an imaginative Geek can create his or her own masterpiece. Tossing in a few extra miniatures or sketching some new terrain tiles adds layers of enjoyment to the Battle Cry onion.

The design is perfect for grafting on additional rules. The simple foundation of Mr. Borg's monument to playability can support any number of fresh ideas. I can't think of another wargame ("lite" or otherwise) that has appeared during my 35+ years in the hobby that offered so much flexibilty.

Here are a few of my favorite scenarios. I don't expect a busy BGG reader to examine every individual article but I offer this panorama to illustrate the tremendous potential of the Battle Cry package. Perhaps this article will inspire a platoon of Geeks to churn out the ideas they have been working on. Please think of this quick review as a salute to Mr. Borg and to the Battle Cry fun machine.

The campaigns are listed in chronological order. I have rated each scenario on my personal Fun-O-Meter based on the enjoyment I experienced fooling around with Battle Cry. Four stars is the highest rating.

I have spent hundreds of hours and a pile of money on these variants... thank goodness I was never infected with Mr. Borg's equally captivating Memoir '44 virus!

I can't wait to see the new edition.



Fort Wagner

Up against Matthew Broderick in the Fort Wagner solitaire scenario



One of the most stimulating elements is the opportunity to create bizarre scenarios using the mix-and-match terrain tiles. The assault on Fort Wagner that was made famous by the superb Civil War film Glory might provide an interesting solitaire game so I decided to tinker with a set of rules for that scenario. In this photo I’m taking on Matthew Broderick as Colonel Robert Shaw of the 54th Massachusetts Volunteers.

The fort is visible in the foreground and the six regiments of the Union assault force are deployed near the Yankee siege guns. The Confederate strongpoint was located between the shoreline (created using sea tiles from Settlers) and an impassable swamp represented by the Woods tiles. The "rock" surfaces of the rough terrain tiles represent bastions containing artillery batteries. The ditch is represented by waterway tiles. A special rule allows two CSA units to occupy any fortified hex.

Fun-O-Meter



The Wilderness

"Ain't I glad to get out of the Wilderness" -- Grant and Lee slug it out in 1864



During the first week of May in 1864 the Union and Confederate armies fought a confusing, bloody battle in a tangle of forests, briars, swamps, and ravines known as The Wilderness. The chaos and random nature of the fighting make the struggle an interesting match with the Battle Cry game system.

"Ain't I glad to get out of the Wilderness" was a gospel tune popular during the Civil War era. When the Union army moved south after the indecisive battle the Yankee soldiers were jubilant... many had expected Grant to retreat as other Federal commanders had done after suffering such casualties. A military band decided to serenade Grant with this quite appropriate song but the effort was wasted -- Grant was tone deaf and had to ask a staff member for the title of that musical selection.

Fun-O-Meter



Custer at the Little Bighorn

The Little Bighorn scenario proves that Custer was a fool and I’m not so bright either...



I have been a student of the Little Bighorn battle and the Sioux War of 1876 for several years. My original goal was the development of an authentic simulation of the entire campaign including Crook’s battle at the Rosebud. I have a small library of books on the battle and consider myself to be a Custer buff.

The fight at the Little Bighorn is a magnificent example of asymmetric warfare. We have two completely different cultures colliding in a trial of strength which expresses the military and psychological divide between the opposing forces. Custer’s Last Stand is not an easy struggle to convert into a board game format. However, the chaotic play pattern of the typical Battle Cry game provides an excellent match with the situation in 1876. I have created a special mix of cards and the scenario includes several changes to the rules. The game is fun and reflects the historical situation without smothering the players with fiddly procedures.

Fun-O-Meter



The 1898 Santiago Campaign

Theodore Roosevelt and the Rough Riders take a pounding in the 1898 scenario



The war between the United States and Spain in 1898 is a fascinating period of military history. This transitional conflict served as a link between the 19th century and the modern era... and the campaign in Cuba also included the exploits of my boyhood hero Theodore Roosevelt! The 1898 scenario depicts the engagement known as the "Battle of San Juan Hill" and the other actions that were fought on July 1, 1898 near Santiago. This is a solitaire scenario using special rules I tried to develop using the Battle Cry system.

The U.S. army forces are approaching Santiago. The forest is impassable so the Americans are crowded along muddy trails. The Spanish defenders are entrenched at El Caney in the north and along the San Juan Heights to the west. The optional Colt M1895 Machine Gun rules are being used but this unit is currently packed on mules and stuck behind the Reserve Brigade on the road to El Caney. The Gatling gun battery (not an optional unit) is still on the road and has not yet appeared on the board.





The Wind and the Lion

The Wind and the Lion: Hollywood, Theodore Roosevelt, and the age of imperialism



The Wind and the Lion is a classic adventure film from the 1970s. Set in North Africa during the international crisis of 1904, the movie depicts the kidnapping of some American citizens by a Berber leader named Raisuli and the liberation of those hostages by Candice Bergen the United States Marine Corps. The whole production is a tissue of gossamer fiction. Doesn’t matter. This is a fun movie with Brian Keith giving a superb performance as Theodore Roosevelt.

The climax of the film is a powerful battle scene which shows the USMC, Mrs. Perdicaris, and the Berber cavalry smashing the Imperial German army and rescuing Raisuli (brilliantly played by Sean Connery) from the treacherous clutches of the sultan. This scenario was my attempt to recreate that engagement and uses a number of additional playing pieces from several different games.

Fun-O-Meter


The Battle of Hamunaptra

Hamunaptra 1923



The playfully thrilling 1999 version of The Mummy is one of my favorite adventure films. With its mix of action and humor The Mummy offers an entertainment experience which ranks just below Raiders of the Lost Ark. Rachel Weisz is lovely as the sexy librarian Evelyn Carnahan and the movie meets all expectations as a feature suitable for a Saturday matinee.

One early scene from the film depicts a battle at the lost city of Hamunaptra in 1923. American adventurer Rick O’Connell (Brendan Fraser) is part of a Foreign Legion unit defending the ancient ruins against a Bedouin attack. When the detachment’s commander flees in panic O’Connell attempts to rally the soldiers but shortly after O’Connell’s slimy comrade Beni Gabor runs away the perimeter collapses. A mysterious entity brings the fighting to a halt with a manifestation of its evil presence. O’Connell escapes into the Sahara as the Medjai (warriors who guard the ancient ruins) watch him stagger away from Hamunaptra. Their leader declines to pursue O’Connell as he says, “The desert will kill him.”

Fun-O-Meter

by Jefforama

I like a complex game with a lot of rules and tones of cubes as much as the next guy, but every now and then, it's nice to have a little palate cleanser, something to focus on briefly without getting all kinds of concepts in the way of the strategy. Quarto is that kind of game, there's no feeding your family, there's no disease, there's no getting killed--there's nothing stressful at all, except the competition of a fairly light and quick game.

Components: I found this game in my mom's house and I only bothered pulling it off the shelf because it looked so nice. They don't make games this classy any more. The dark wood board has some heft to it, as to the nicely carved pieces. This is a game to slip into your evening jacket and pour an expensive bottle of wine to--at least, that's what the cover photo and the components would have you believe. And Quarto does have a feel of a bygone era. Sure, it's just from 1991, not too long ago, but it feels like ages ago. Even the most elegant of more recent abstracts (in my opinion, Hive is the most elegant of the recent abstracts) don't have this after-dinner adult party type of feel. Ok, there's not room for too many games in my collection that have that feel, but Quarto's one of them.

Gameplay: The mechanic is simple. Pick one piece, your opponent must place it on a 4x4 grid. Pieces differ on four dimension, color, height, shape, and hollowness. (Hollow-ness? Some are sort of dug-out. It's obvious when you are holding the pieces.) The person who places a piece so that there are four in a row that share any attribute, is the winner. You have to stay out of the position where of the remaining pieces, all of them can be placed so that they are the fourth in a row sharing an attribute.

Like many abstracts, it's a heads-up game. Don't get lost your wineglass or distracted admiring my new corduroy jacket. That's what I want you to do, and when you do . . . POW, I win, the moment is ruined. This isn't some fancy adult party, it's my basement. I'm bored of this, let's play some super nintendo.

by shinobu

Εκτενής παρουσίαση: Napoleon’s Triumph

Προχωρώντας την αναζήτησή μου για παιχνίδια που να μου αρέσουν κατάλαβα οτι έχω μια ιδιαίτερη προτίμηση για τα λεγόμενα block games. Επέλεξα να κάνω αναλυτική παρουσίαση για το συγκεκριμένο καθώς νιώθω πως είναι κάπως ιδιαίτερη περίπτωση από πολλές απόψεις, την έγραψα δε χωρίς να απαιτώ από τον αναγνώστη να έχει ιδέα για την προηγούμενη δουλειά του σχεδιαστή, άρα και για το ιδιαίτερο ύφος του. Οι φωτογραφίες του παιχνιδιού προέρχονται από την καταχώρησή του στο geek.

Εισαγωγή-γενικά-θέμα

Το παιχνίδι κυκλοφόρησε από την Simmons Games το 2008 και αποτελεί συνέχεια και εξέλιξη του, εξαντλημένου πλέον, Bonaparte at Marengo από τον ίδιο σχεδιαστή, τον Bowen Simmons.
Αναπαριστά την μάχη μεταξύ του στρατού του Ναπολέοντα Βοναπάρτη και του συμμαχικού στρατού των Αυστριακών και των Ρώσων υπό την ηγεσία του ίδιου του τσάρου Αλέξανδρου Α’ που έλαβε χώρα στο Austerlitz της Αυστρίας την 2η Δεκεμβρίου του 1805 και κατέληξε σε θρίαμβο των Γάλλων(εξ’ου και το όνομα του παιχνιδιού).

Παίζεται με κατά βάση με 2 παίχτες, έχει όμως και κανόνες για ομαδικό παιχνίδι μέχρι 8 ατόμων.

Περιεχόμενα-ποιότητα παραγωγής-Αισθητική


Το κουτί του παιχνιδιού είναι κανονικού μεγέθους και στο εξώφυλλο απεικονίζεται πίνακας της εποχής που αναπαριστά την μάχη, στις δε πλευρές υπάρχει μια σύντομη εξιστόρηση των ιστορικών γεγονότων με εικονογράφηση, τέλεια για να μπάσει και τους πιό ανενημέρωτους σχετικά με την εποχή, σαν και του λόγου μου, στο κλίμα.

Ανοίγοντας το κουτί βλέπουμε:


• Τον τεράστιο χάρτη του παιχνιδιού ο οποίος αποτελείται από δύο κομμάτια. Το παιχνίδι απαιτεί ένα αρκετά μεγάλο τραπέζι για να παιχτεί. Ο χάρτης είναι δουλεμένος με παστέλ χρώματα, είναι εξαιρετικής ποιότητας σχεδιασμού και αυτό που χτυπάει αμέσως στο μάτι είναι ο ιδιαίτερος τρόπος με τον οποίο έχει χωριστεί σε διαφόρων ειδών πολυγωνικές περιοχές. Δεν πρόκειται όμως για μια απλή περίπτωση χάρτη περιοχών(τύπου Hammer of the Scots ή Small World ας πούμε) μα σε αυτό θα επανέλθω παρακάτω. Υπάρχουν χωριά, δρόμοι, υψώματα, δάση, ποτάμια, βάλτοι, όλο το γεωγραφικό ανάγλυφο της περιοχής. Υπάρχουν επίσης ένα υπόμνημα που εξηγεί τα στοιχεία του χάρτη, μια περιοχή που οι παίκτες σημειώνουν το πέρασμα του χρόνου, η κλίμακα του ηθικού-κοινή για τους δύο στρατούς και τέλος οι περιοχές οπου ο κάθε παίκτης σημειώνει τις κινήσεις του αντιπάλου αφού ο τελευταίος τις δηλώσει.

• Μερικά ξύλινα δισκάκια για το μαρκάρισμα του χρόνου, του ηθικού και των κινήσεων στις αντίστοιχες περιοχές που αναφέρθηκαν παραπάνω.


• Τα ξύλινα μακρόστενα ορθογώνια παραλληλεπίπεδα κομμάτια σε χρώμα μπλε για τον Γαλλικό και κόκκινο για τον συμμαχικό στρατό, με σημειωμένο πάνω τους μόνο το είδος της μονάδας και την δύναμή της(από 1 έως 3). Υπάρχουν τρία βασικά είδη μονάδων(πεζικό, ιππικό, πυροβολικό), ειδικότερα υπάρχουν οι μονάδες της φρουράς οι οποίες είναι μονάδες πεζικού δύναμης 3 με ελαφρά διαφορετική σήμανση από το υπόλοιπο πεζικό και το παιχνίδι ορίζει οτι το ιππικό δύναμης 3 αναφέρεται ως βαρύ ιππικό. Οι δύο τελευταίες μονάδες αναφέρονται ως οι «ελίτ» μονάδες του κάθε στρατού.


• Τα πολύ ασυνήθιστα και εντυπωσιακά μεταλλικά κομμάτια των διοικητών, σχεδιασμένα για να εναποτίθενται πάνω στα ξύλινα.

• 2 σετ με αυτοκόλλητα για τα κομμάτια των διοικητών, με τα ονόματα και τα λάβαρά τους. Όταν λέμε 2 σετ, να διευκρινίσω οτι πρόκειται για 2 πλήρη σετ και όχι ένα για κάθε στρατό.

• 2 οχτασέλιδα έγχρωμα βιβλία κανόνων, ένα για κάθε παίκτη(...!!).

Ανοίγοντας λοιπόν το κουτί και αντικρίζοντας τα παραπάνω, προσωπικά έπαθα το πρώτο σοκ από τα πολλά που θα ακολουθούσαν. Σοκ γιατί εκτιμώ πολύ την καλή αισθητική στα παιχνίδια(και γενικότερα, τι να κάνω, δουλειά μου είναι άλλωστε) και εδώ έχουμε ένα αριστούργημα σχεδιασμού και την κορυφαία ποιότητα παραγωγής που έχω προσωπικά συναντήσει σε επιτραπέζιο παιχνίδι.

Ο χάρτης είναι επικολλημένος σε σκληρό και παχύ υλικό, δείχνει ιδιαίτερα ανθεκτικός και όπως προείπα είναι λειτουργικότατος και πανέμορφος. Όταν δε τοποθετηθούν πάνω του τα κομμάτια, έχουμε ένα θέαμα υπέροχο καθότι εκεί εκτιμούμε την επιλογή της παλέττας του η οποία ενώ αρχικά δίνει μια «ξενέρωτη» και «ξεπλυμένη» εντύπωση σε σχέση με τα έντυπωσιακά χρώματα που έχουμε συνηθίσει από άλλα παιχνίδια, τελικά λειτουργεί άψογα σε συνδυασμό με τα έντονα χρωματισμένα κομμάτια και είναι πολύ ξεκούραστη για το μάτι κατά την διάρκεια της παρτίδας:


Τα κομμάτια και οι δείκτες, όπως έιπαμε, είναι όλα ξύλινα και μεταλλικά. Δεν υπάρχει χαρτονένιο κομμάτι ούτε για δείγμα. Αυτό χτυπάει αυτή την χορδή μέσα μου, αυτή την μεγάλη παραξενιά παραδέχομαι, την απόλυτη περιφρόνηση δηλαδή των χαρτονένιων κομματιών και την άμεση απόρριψη των παιχνιδιών που αποτελούνται μόνο από τέτοια ως ευτελή. Δεν λέω οτι είναι κακά τα περισσότερα πολεμικά παιχνίδια, απλά οτι είναι παράλογα ακριβά σε σχέση με την παραγωγή τους. Δυστυχώς έχω ένα τέτοιο στην συλλογή μου λόγω θέματος αλλά εξοργίζομαι όταν ο αξιοπρεπέστατος και βαθιά καλλιεργημένος απ’ότι φαίνεται κος Simmons μου πουλάει ένα παιχνίδι καμωμένο από ξύλο και μέταλλο, τεράστιο σκληρό χάρτη, 2 βιβλία οδηγιών(!!!) και έξτρα ξύλινα κομμάτια και αυτοκόλλητα σε περίπτωση που κάτι χαθεί(σπανιότατη περίπτωση επίσης) στην ίδια τιμή που άλλοι μου πουλάνε ένα μάτσο χαρτονάκια και μάλιστα με χάρτη όχι από σκληρό χαρτόνι, δηλαδή από υλικά που με λίγη χαρτοκοπτική τα φτιάχνω και σπίτι ενδεχομένως και καλύτερα(και όσοι το αμφισβητούν, ας δουν την περίπτωση αυτή. Ο άνθρωπος αυτός έφτιαξε ένα πολύ αξιόλογο κατά γενική ομολογία δωρεάν παιχνίδι από τα ίδια υλικά που αποτελούνται πολλά αντίστοιχα του εμπορίου και με λίγη χαρτοκοπτική και ελάχιστα έξοδα κανείς το έχει έτοιμο σε μια-δύο μέρες). Και αν κάποιος μου πει οτι πληρώνω τον σχεδιασμό και όχι τα χαρτονάκια, τότε το Napoleon’s Triumph θα έπρεπε να κοστίζει πολύ παραπάνω: όχι μόνο δεν υστερεί σε τίποτα, αλλά εδώ μπορεί να βρεί κάποιος και την απόδειξη οτι είναι και ανώτερου επιπέδου σχεδιασμού από πολλά άλλα. Τέλος η γκρίνια, τα είπα και ξαλάφρωσα.



Αφού στηθεί το παιχνίδι δεν μπορεί κανείς παρά να παραδεχτεί οτι είναι πανέμορφο. Τα στοιχεία που το αποτελούν είναι ελάχιστα, πρόκειται για ένα υπέρχο δείγμα μίνιμαλ σχεδιασμού. Ούτε σωροί με δεικτάκια, ούτε κάρτες σκόρπιες παντού να πιάνουν τον τόπο, τίποτα. Απλότητα, τα ελάχιστα απαραίτητα και το μάτι κατευθείαν ασχολείται με την ουσία: τους δύο στρατούς που αντικρύζουν ο ένας τον άλλο σε παράταξη και είναι έτοιμοι να αρχίσουν να ελίσσονται, με τα λάβαρά τους να τους οδηγούν. Αμέσως παρατηρεί κανείς την παραπομπή του σχεδιαστή στο στυλ απεικόνισης που έχουν οι χάρτες εποχής που αναφέρονται στην μάχη: έχει φτιάξει ακριβώς έναν τέτοιον, αλλά κινούμενο!

Κανόνες-εκμάθηση

Και ανοίγουμε επιτέλους να διαβάσουμε το πως θα δώσουμε ζωή και κίνηση σε όλη αυτή την μάζα του ξύλου.

Η πρώτη ανάγνωση πρέπει να παραδεχτώ οτι με τρόμαξε. Όχι πως υπήρχε κάτι το δύσκολο μέσα, όλα εξηγούνται με τρόπο απλό και ακριβή και είναι με πρώτη ματιά απολύτως κατανοητά. Μα έλειπε κάτι. Ψάχνοντας στην καταχώρηση του παιχνιδιού διαπίστωσα οτι υπάρχει ένα θέμα: οι κανόνες είναι κάπως δύσπεπτοι και ειδικά αυτοί που ορίζουν τον τρόπο διεξαγωγής της μάχης. Υπάρχει μια γκρίνια για το ζήτημα.

Και αυτό γιατί ο κος Simmons, όντας όπως έχει άλλωστε ήδη φανεί ένας αληθινός καλλιτέχνης, έχει καταφέρει να στήσει ένα σετ κανόνων το οποίο βρίθει κρυφών νοημάτων. Ξεκινώντας μετά την πρώτη ανάγνωση, ο παίκτης μπορεί να κινήσει εύκολα τα κομμάτια του μα μέχρι εκεί. Διαπιστώνει γρήγορα οτι η αρχική του εντύπωση(που προκύπτει από τα οπτικά δεδομένα) οτι είναι καλό να οδηγήσει μια τεράστια δύναμη έναντι μιας αρκετά μικρότερης είναι εσφαλμένη. Και εκέι αρχίζει να ανακαλύπτει, και να ανακαλύπτει, και να ανακαλύπτει όλο και περισσότερες τακτικές δυνατότητες. Δεν έχω καμία προθεση να κρύψω οτι προσωπικά πελάγωσα τόσο κάποια στιγμή που τύπωσα έναν αριθμό πολύ χρήσιμων βοηθημάτων για την διαδικασία της μάχης, μετέφρασα με δικά μου λόγια το ένα για να το κάνω πιό ευκολοχώνευτο και ξαφνικά οι ουρανοί άνοιξαν, άκουσα μουσική από λύρες, λαούτα, άρπες και πολεμικά τύμπανα, τα πάντα λούστηκαν στο φως και είδα τους κανονιοβολισμούς, το πεζικό σε παράταξη να εφορμά, να αναπτύσσεται, να καλύπτει θέσεις, το ιππικό να ελίσσεται, να παρενοχλεί και να καταφέρνει συντριπτικά χτυπήματα σε δυνάμεις αριθμητικά πολύ ανώτερες, είδα ευθείες επιθέσεις και πλαγιοκοπήσεις, διπλές υπερκεράσεις, περικυκλώσεις, προσποιήσεις, τακτικές και άτακτες έως πανικόβλητες υποχωρήσεις, μύρισα το μπαρούτι, άκουσα τις ομοβροντίες και τις κραυγές των πληγωμένων.

Και μετά, ξαφνικά, πρόβλημα: "τί συμβαίνει στην τάδε ή την δείνα περίπτωση?"

Κανένα πρόβλημα: οι, δύσπεπτοι κατά τα άλλα, κανόνες δεν αφήνουν να πέσει κάτω το παραμικρό. Ανοίγει κανείς το βιβλίο, το προσωπικό του βιβλίο επιμένω, διαβάζει προσεκτικά και είναι όλα εκεί, διατυπωμένα με πληρη σαφήνεια. Δεν υπάρχουν θέματα ερμηνείας στους κανόνες του Napoleon’s Triumph. Δεν το έχει επιτρέψει ο σχεδιαστής. Ο,τι απαγορεύεται απαγορεύεται. Ο,τιδήποτε άλλο, επιτρέπεται. Φαντάζομαι οτι όλο και σε κάποια «τρύπα» θα πέσουμε παίζοντας, μα νομίζω οτι αυτοί οι κανόνες είναι μεν δύσκολοι στην αρχή μα είναι ο,σο πιό πλήρεις και ακριβείς γίνεται. Οι πιό πολλές ερωτήσεις πάνω στους κανόνες που γίνονται εδώ στο geek θα είχαν αποφευχθεί με λίγο πιό προσεκτική ανάγνωση.

Ως εκ τούτου, το παιχνίδι απαιτεί ανθρώπους υπομονετικούς και ταγμένους. Δεν είναι το παιχνίδι που λύνεται κανείς από τις πρώτες παρτίδες, χαλαρώνει και παίζει «ρελαντί». Στίβει το μυαλό του παίκτη και τον εξωθεί να επινοήσει νέες δυνατότητες, νέες τακτικές, νέες παγίδες στα πλαίσια των κανόνων. Δείχνει οτι μπορεί κανείς να γίνεται όλο και καλύτερος όσο παίζει και αποτελέι για εμένα τουλάχιστον μια ισχυρή ένδειξη οτι το παιχνίδι αυτό έχει μεγάλο βάθος.

Παιχνίδι-στρατηγική

Τί συμβαίνει λοιπόν σε μια παρτίδα Napoleon’s Triumph?

Κατ’αρχήν, στήνουμε. Υπάρχουν δύο σενάρια, το βασικό στο οποίο οι δύο στρατοί ξεκινούν απέναντι ο ένας από τον άλλον και ένα σενάριο το οποίο ξεκινά την προηγούμενη μέρα της μάχης και ξεκινά με τους σύμμαχους να έχουν μόλις δύο σώματα στο πεδίο- τα άλλα καταφτάνουν και δίνουν την ευκαιρία για μια διαφορετικού τύπου ανάπτυξη σε σχέση με το βασικό σενάριο. Η αρχική ταξινόμηση των κομματιών και το στήσιμο γίνονται γρήγορα και τον πιό πολύ χρόνο τον παίρνει και πάλι η ουσία: η σκέψη όσον αφορά το σχέδιο της μάχης(υπάρχουν άπειρες δυνατότητες) και την σύνθεση των σωμάτων που θα εξυπηρετήσει καλύτερα το σχέδιο αυτό. Η θέση τους υπαγορεύεται από τον χάρτη. Πρώτος στήνει ο σύμμαχος, στη συνέχεια ο Γάλλος. Ο Γάλλος τέλος έχει την δυνατότητα να αποσπάσει μερικές μονάδες από τα σώματά του και να τις αναπτύξει καταπώς νομίζει και είναι επίσης υποχρεωμένος να ορίσει μια πυροβολαρχία η οποία θα βρίσκεται σε σταθερή θέση καθ’όλη την διάρκεια του παιχνιδιού.

Εδώ είναι η ώρα να αρχίσω να εξηγώ κάποια βασικά στοιχεία του παιχνιδιού τα οποία δεν είναι τόσο όμοια με άλλα πολεμικά παιχνίδια. Αυτά είναι οι περιοχές, οι μονάδες και οι εντολές κίνησης.

Μια περιοχή στο Napoleon’s Triumph δεν είναι ακριβώς μια συγκεκριμένη θέση στον χάρτη όπως σε άλλα παιχνίδια. Σε μια περιοχή με 5 όρια μπορούμε να τοποθετήσουμε μια μονάδα σε 6 πιθανές διακριτές θέσεις: μια θέση σε κάθε ένα από τα όρια(«προσβάσεις» όπως τις ονομάζει το παιχνίδι) και μία στο κέντρο, στην «εφεδρεία». Οι δυνάμεις στις προσβάσεις είναι πιό αποτελεσματικές στην άμυνα, μα με πολύ λιγότερες δυνατότητες κίνησης. Οι μονάδες στην εφεδρεία είναι κατάτι πιό ευάλωτες, ειδικά αν είναι λίγες, μα πολύ πιό ευέλικτες. Τα όρια των περιοχών υπαγορεύουν τους συντελεστές ποινής για το κάθε έιδος μονάδας σύμφωνα με το είδος του εδάφους. Ούτε πίνακες με βοηθήματα ούτε τίποτα. Μια ματιά στον χάρτη, και ο παίκτης αποφασίζει τι τον συμφέρει να κάνει σε κάθε περιοχή. Υπάρχει τεράστιος χώρος για ελιγμούς(ο χάρτης χωρίζεται σε οχι λιγότερες από 170 περιοχές με ένα μέσο όρο 5-6 θέσεων ανά περιοχή=κυριολεκτικά εκατοντάδες πιθανές θέσεις!) και όχι τυχαία αφού εκεί βρίσκεται και η ουσία του παιχνιδιού.

Οι μονάδες, με όρους εντολών κίνησης πιά, είναι κατ’αρχήν δύο ειδών: σώματα στρατού και αποσπασμένες, ανεξάρτητες μονάδες. Ένα σώμα στρατού αποτελείται από έναν διοικητή και 1-8 μονάδες οι οποίες βαδίζουν ως μία. Μια ανεξάρτητη μονάδα είναι οποιαδήποτε μονάδα δεν ανήκει σε ένα σώμα με διοικητή. Δύο μονάδες στην ίδια θέση λοιπόν, πχ που καλύπτουν την ίδια πρόσβαση, είναι πάντα δυο ανεξάρτητες μονάδες και δεν μπορούν να κινηθούν με την ίδια εντολή ως μία, όπως τα σώματα.

Υπάρχουν τέσσερα είδη εντολών κίνησης στο Napoleon’s Triumph: τα τρία είναι εντολές που δίνονται σε έναν διοικητή(κίνηση σώματος, απόσπαση κομματιών από ένα σώμα, προσάρτηση ενός κομματιού σε ένα σώμα) και το τελευταίο είναι εντολές ανεξάρτητης μονάδας. Το πλήθος των διαθέσιμων εντολών ανά στρατό αντικατοπτρίζει και την διαφορά στο επίπεδο διοίκησης(ο Γαλλικός στρατός είναι μικρότερος μα πολύ πιό κινητικός και ευέλικτος). Η φιλοσοφία των εντολών είναι οτι ο παίκτης πρέπει να είναι πολύ προσεκτικός στην οικονομία των δυνάμεών του: ένα σώμα εύκολα διασπάται μα πολύ δύσκολα ανασυντίθεται. Και όσο τα σώματα διασπώνται, τόσο τα κομμάτια μας θα ακινητοποιούνται στο ταμπλό-οι εντολές ανεξάρτητης μονάδας δεν είναι ποτέ αρκετές!

Ποιά είναι όμως η συνθήκη νίκης?Τι προσπαθούμε να πετύχουμε με όλες αυτές τις εντολές?

Η αποφασιστική νίκη στο παιχνίδι είναι η διάλυση του ηθικού του αντιπάλου. Είπαμε ήδη οτι σε μια γωνία του χάρτη υπάρχει η κλίμακα του ηθικού. Εκεί, με δείκτες ανάλογου χρώματος, σημειώνεται το επίπεδο του ηθικού του κάθε στρατού κάθε στιγμή. Το ηθικό μεταβάλλεται με τους εξής τρόπους:

• Νίκη σε μάχη(και, ενδεχομένως, υποχώρηση του ηττημένου). Ο ηττημένος υφίσταται πτώση του ηθικού του τόση όσες οι απώλειες που υπέστη σε δύναμη κατά την διάρκεια της μάχης ή/και της υποχώρησης. Είναι ο μοναδικός μας τρόπος να νικήσουμε.

• Εμπλοκή του βαρέος ιππικού. Την πρώτη φορά που κάποιος θα εμφανίσει βαρύ ιππικό σε μάχη, ακόμα και αν πρόκειται μόνο για υποχώρηση, υφίσταται 2 απώλειες ηθικού.

• Εμπλοκή μονάδας φρουρών. Την πρώτη φορά που κάποιος θα εμφανίσει φρουρούς σε μάχη, όπως και με το βαρύ ιππικό, θα υποστεί 4 απώλειες ηθικού.

• Ήττα σε επίθεση φρουρών. Η επίθεση φρουρών είναι μια ειδική περίπτωση. Δίνει τεράστιο πλεονέκτημα έναντι μέτριας δυναμικότητας μονάδων μα αν δεν είναι νικηφόρα κοστίζει 3 έξτρα απώλειες ηθικού(πέρα από αυτές της μάχης)

• Αν ο παίκτης που παίζει τους Γάλλους εμφανίσει ενισχύσεις, το ηθικό του ανεβαίνει κατά 4

• Στο σενάριο της 1ης Δεκεμβρίου μεταξύ των δύο ημερών μεσολαβεί ένας γύρος νύχτας όπου οι παίκτες κερδίζουν το μισό από το ηθικό που έχασαν την 1η μέρα, με μάξιμουμ όμως το 4.

Μόλις το ηθικό του ενός στρατού πέσει στο 0 αμέσως ο αντίπαλος κερδίζει.

Σε περίπτωση που η μάχη τελειώσει και δεν έχει υπάρξει νίκη ηθικού η νίκη αποφασίζεται με ένα σύστημα κατάληψης αντικειμενικών σκοπών σε περιοχές, το οποίο διαφέρει ανάλογα με το αν ο Γάλλος εμφάνισε ενισχύσεις ή όχι- αν εμφανίσει, αυτού του είδους η νίκη γίνεται γι’αυτόν πολύ δύσκολη(ποτέ, πάντως, ανέφικτη).

Η μάχη ξεκινάει με έναν μεγάλο όγκο συμμαχικών δυνάμεων παρεταγμένο μπροστά από την δεξιά πτέρυγα των Γάλλων και αμέσως παρατηρεί κανείς το πόσο σημαντικό είναι το τερραίν στο παιχνίδι: δημιουργούνται ισχυρές θέσεις άμυνας και πρέπει να είναι κανείς πολύ σίγουρος γι’άυτό που κάνει προκειμένου να επιτεθεί. Υπάρχουν σημεία που είναι πλατιά και η πρόσβαση είναι εύκολη, μα υπάρχουν και πολλά αδιάβατα και άλλα που έχουν πολλούς περιορισμούς, τόσους που καθιστούν την επίθεση μια χρονοβόρα, επίπονη και αμφιβόλου αποτελεσματικότητας διαδικασία. Το παιχνίδι δεν παίζεται στο «κουτουρού» αν μου επιτρέπεται η έκφραση. Χωρίς σχέδιο μάχης πρέπει να είναι κανείς ικανότατος παίκτης ώστε να μην κατατροπωθεί. Εν τω μεταξύ, ενώ δεν είναι αρχικά φανερό στους κανόνες και όλες οι μονάδες δείχνουν σε ενοχλητικό βαθμό ίδιες, μόλις ο παίκτης συνηθίσει λίγο το παιχνίδι διαπιστώνει οτι οι μονάδες έχουν τον χαρακτήρα τους και την ξεχωριστή αποστολή τους και αυτό που έχει αυτός να κάνει είναι το να οργανώσει την πιό αποτελεσματική συνεργασία τους.

Μετά βλέπουμε το «κυρίως πιάτο» του παιχνιδιού: ελιγμοί, ελιγμοί, ελιγμοί. Οι δύο στρατοί αρχίζουν να κινούνται σύμφωνα με το σχέδιό τους σε μια προσπάθεια να βρεθούν σε θέσεις πλεονεκτικές σε σχέση με τον αντίπαλο ώστε να του καταφέρουν κάποιο χτύπημα και αυτό είναι κάτι που ακούγεται απλό, αλλά χρειάζεται πολλή προσοχή: αν ο αντίπαλος μας παρασύρει σε παγίδα τα αποτελέσματα είναι καταστροφικά.

Εκεί καταλαβαίνει κανείς το βάθος της λεπτομέρειας που προσφέρει ο σχεδιασμός του Napoleon’s Triumph, παρ’όλη την αρχική του «αφηρημένη» αύρα. Σε κάθε κομμάτι του τερραίν διαδραματίζεται κάτι άλλο, εντελώς διαφορετικό κάθε φορά, ένα παιχνίδι μέσα στο παιχνίδι. Η μία άκρη του τερραίν από την άλλη φαντάζει πραγματικά πολύ μακριά! Ταυτόχρονα όμως, τα πάντα είναι σε απόλυτη σύνδεση και αλληλεξάρτηση.



Καθώς η κίνηση προχωράει και οι στρατοί έχουν πιά αναπτυχθεί πλήρως και έχουν βρεθεί αντιμέτωποι σε διάφορα σημεία ή και πέρα ως πέρα στον χάρτη, αρχίζει η μάχη. Εκεί έχει κανείς την ευκαιρία να διαπιστώσει το τι κρύβουν οι κανόνες της μάχης ανάμεσα στις γραμμές: η μάχη δεν είναι «παίρνω το τάδε σώμα και το πετάω πάνω στο σώμα του αντιπάλου». Όποιος το πράξει θα το μετανιώσει πικρά. Η μάχη είναι ολόκληρη διδικασία που παίρνει αρκετούς γύρους, περνάει από διάφορα στάδια και έχει πάντα κόστος. Δεν είναι δυνατόν κάποιος να επιτεθεί αποτελεσματικά χωρίς να έχει προετοιμάσει κατάλληλα το έδαφος με σωστή οργάνωση των μονάδων που αποτελούν το επιτιθέμενο σώμα, ελιγμούς ανάπτυξης, προστασίας των πλευρών, τοποθέτησης του πυροβολικού σε θέση βολής, οικονομία στις εφεδρείες κτλ και σε κάθε περίπτωση, αν μιλάμε για ευθεία επίθεση, πρέπει να έχει υπομονή και να αναμένει απώλειες μέχρι να δει αποτέλεσμα- απώλειες όχι μόνο σε στρατό, αλλά όπως είπαμε και σε ηθικό...

Από την άλλη, με σωστές κινήσεις, ένας παίκτης είναι δυνατόν να καταβάλλει τον αντίπαλό του σχετικά αναίμακτα, το οποίο είναι και ο πιό σύντομος δρόμος για την νίκη. Βέβαια, εύκολα λέγεται, δύσκολα πραγματοποιείται κάτι τέτοιο...

Το παιχνίδι δεν συγχωρεί λάθη, τουλάχιστον όχι σοβαρά. Ο χρόνος ολοένα λιγοστεύει και οι κινήσεις είναι πολύτιμες και πρέπει να ζυγίζονται σωστά. Το λάθος δίνει την ευκαιρία στον αντίπαλο να μας ρίξει εύκολα και ανέξοδα το ηθικό, πράγμα που μπορέι να αποβεί μοιραίο. Από την άλλη, μια παρτίδα στην οποία το ηθικό μας είναι στο ναδίρ και εκείνο του αντιπάλου υψηλό, μπορεί να κερδηθεί- ο σχεδιασμός του παιχνιδιού είναι τέτοιος που οι ανατροπές είναι πολύ συχνό φαινόμενο, κάτι που προσδίδει αγωνία. Ένα σώμα που μας έτρεψε τον προηγούμενο γύρο σε φυγή, κάλλιστα μετά την προώθησή του μπορεί να βρέθηκε ευάλωτο σε αντεπίθεση.

Μιλώντας για αγωνία, να πούμε οτι η παρτίδα παίζεται κυριολεκτικά σε τεντωμένο σχοινί. Η ασυμμετρία των αντίπαλων δυνάμεων λειτουργεί άψογα- ο Γάλλος ευέλικτος αλλά μικρότερος σε αριθμό, ο σύμμαχος ογκώδης,βαρύς και βραδυκίνητος.Το στοιχείο των κρυφών μονάδων σε συνδυασμό με την απόλυτη ισορροπία που έχει επιτύχει ο σχεδιαστής ανεβάζει την αδρεναλίνη του παίκτη στο κατακόρυφο- και την κρατάει εκεί σε όλη την διάρκεια. Όπως και στην πραγματικότητα, οι διαθέσιμες δυνάμεις δεν είναι ποτέ αρκετές. Γίνονται πολλές μπλόφες, το στοιχείο του ρίσκου υπάρχει πολύ έντονο και είναι πολύ ωραία η στιγμή κατά την οποία, μετά το τέλος της παρτίδας οι παίκτες ανοίγουν τα κομμάτια και βλέπουν πόσο διαφορετικά θα είχαν κινηθεί αν οι μονάδες ήταν φανερές. Υπάρχουν σημεία που αν είχαν δεχτεί και την παραμικρή επίθεση θα κατέρρεαν παρασύροντας τα πάντα στην καταστροφή όπως και άλλα φαινομενικά αδύναμα τα οποία αν δέχονταν επίθεση θα μάθαιναν τον θρασύτατο αντίπαλο διοικητή να είναι πιό σεμνός και προσεκτικός.

Το στοιχείο των Γαλλικών ενισχύσεων προσφέρει σε πολλά επίπεδα: κατ’ αρχήν στο στοιχείο της αβεβαιότητας και της έκπληξης. Ο σύμμαχος ποτέ δεν είναι βέβαιος οτι ο Γάλλος θα τις χρησιμοποιήσει, εκτός και αν η απειλείται άμεσα με ήττα. Δεύτερον, άπαξ και ο Γάλλος αποφασίσει να το κάνει, αλλάζουν άρδην οι συνθήκες νίκης στο τέλος του παιχνιδιού. Γενικότερα, αλλάζουν οι ρόλοι: τώρα πιά επιτιθέμενος είναι ο Γάλλος και ο σύμμαχος προσπαθεί να κρατηθεί και να μην καταρρεύσει. Και οι δύο παίκτες, λοιπόν, πρέπει να είναι εξίσου ικανοί στην άμυνα και την επίθεση. Οι δυνατότητες για στρατηγικές αποφάσεις πολλαπλασιάζονται, καθώς ο Γάλλος δεν έχει να αποφασίσει μόνο αν θα τις βάλει αλλά πότε και από που, και ο σύμμαχος πρέπει να λάβει κάθε ενδεχόμενο υπόψη του.

Τέλος, και παρότι θα ακουστεί κάπως περίεργο σε σχέση με κάποια πράγματα που λέγονται και γράφτηκαν και σε αυτή την παρουσίαση, το παιχνίδι είναι πάναπλο. Πραγματικά, πολύ απλό. Μετά από μερικές μάχες όλες οι παράμετροι έχουν αποκρυσταλλωθεί, έχουν αποκτήσει νόημα και σύνδεση με την πραγματικότητα και απο κει και πέρα ο παίκτης σκέφτεται μόνο στρατηγική.Δύσκολο στην εκμάθηση, ίσως, πάντως πολύπλοκο όχι.

Μερικές Φιλοσοφικές σκέψεις(....!!!)-Τελικό συμπέρασμα

Οι σκέψεις (και οι θέσεις)που ακολουθούν είναι απόλυτα προσωπικές. Δεν λέω πως είναι τα πράγματα, μα πως τα βλέπω εγώ.

Παρότι σχετικά νέος στον χώρο των πολεμικών παιχνιδιών έχω ασχοληθεί θεωρώ αρκετά ώστε να έχω την πεποίθηση και την ελπίδα οτι το σύστημα του κου Simmons για την οργάνωση του ταμπλο και των κομματιών στα παιχνίδια του θα επηρρεάσει τον μελλοντικό σχεδιασμό των παιχνιδιών μάχης, τουλάχιστον σε επιχειρησιακό/τακτικό επίπεδο. Και πιστεύω οτι δεν πρόκειται απλά περί βήματος μπροστά, αλλά περί άλματος και από τα εξάγωνα και από τις κλασικές περιοχές.

Κατά πρώτον, oι περιοχές στον χάρτη δημιουργούν ένα οργανικό, εντελώς ασύμμετρο μοτίβο, «αγκαλιάζοντας» σχεδόν τέλεια, σαν χειρουργικό γάντι, το ανάγλυφο της περιοχής παρά προσαρμόζοντάς το σε ένα πλήρως συμμετρικό εξαγωνικό ή τετραγωνικό μοτίβο, με αποτέλεσμα σημαντικές παραμορφώσεις. Με λίγα λόγια, δεν προσαρμόζεται η φύση στο πλέγμα των περιοχών, αλλά το πλέγμα στη φύση. Το αποτέλεσμα είναι πολύ ρεαλιστικό: η φύση, σε μακροκοσμικό επίπεδο τουλάχιστον, δεν εμφανίζει κανονικότητα. Στο Napoleon’s Triumph μια μονάδα μέσα σε ένα δάσος θα κινηθεί αργά λόγω της οργάνωσης των περιοχών οι οποίες είναι πολύ μικρές, ενώ μία σε πεδιάδα θα κινηθεί γρήγορα- κατά πάσα πιθανότητα όμως, θα έχει και ένα ευρύτερο μέτωπο να υπερασπιστεί. Τα ακανόνιστα και διαφορετικά σχήματα δημιουργούν το καθένα και μια διαφορετική πρόκληση για την υπεράσπιση ή κατάληψή τους, μόνο και μόνο με το σχήμα τους.

Μέχρι εδώ ακούγεται πραγματικά κάτι το διαφορετικό όσον αφορά τα εξάγωνα, όχι όμως και τους χάρτες περιοχών, οι οποίοι είναι επίσης ασύμμετροι στην οργάνωσή τους. Το γεγονός όμως οτι η εφεδρεία και η ανάπτυξη σε όριο αποτελούν διακριτές θέσεις για ένα κομμάτι είναι μια (ιδιοφυής, κατά τη γνώμη μου)επινόηση του Simmons η οποία ανεβάζει τους χάρτες περιοχών σε άλλο επίπεδο. Κατ’αρχήν, στα όριά τους σημειώνονται όλα τα τυχόν μειονεκτήματα του συγκεκριμένου ορίου. Έτσι, και ο παίκτης δεν χρειάζεται να θυμάται τίποτα καθώς όλα είναι σημειωμένα και το κάθε όριο έχει τον χαρακτήρα του ανεξάρτητα από τον τύπο εδάφους της περιοχής το οποίο δίνει τεράστιο πλούτο συνδυασμών. Δεύτερο όμως και σημαντικότερο, είναι οτι παίζει σημαντικό ρόλο στην μάχη το που βρίσκεται μια μονάδα. Ο παίκτης άρα, πρέπει να φροντίσει να την οργανώσει έτσι ώστε να έχει τις μεγαλύτερες πιθανότητες να επιτύχει την αποστολή της, όποια και αν είναι αυτή. Αυτό οδηγεί στην δημιουργία σχηματισμών κάθε είδους μέσα στην ίδια μία περιοχή, οι οποίοι μάλιστα είναι φοβερά απλοί και γρήγοροι στην ανάγνωση από τον αντίπαλο λόγω των μακρόστενων κομματιών-το θέμα του προσανατολισμού λύνεται αυτομάτως.

Επειδή λοιπόν η θέση, ο προσανατολισμός, οι ελιγμοί των μονάδων και το τερραίν είναι ανά τους αιώνες ύψιστης σημασίας παράγοντες κάθε μάχης, ελπίζω και υποθέτω οτι με ανάλογα προσαρμοσμένους κανόνες κίνησης και μάχης, μπορούν με αυτό το σύστημα να αναπαρασταθούν πετυχημένα μάχες από την αρχαιότητα μέχρι και το Blitzkrieg.

Ένα άλλο σημείο στο οποίο θα ήθελα να αναφερθώ είναι η παρουσία του στοιχείου του απρόβλεπτου μέσα σε ένα παιχνίδι, και ειδικά στο Napoleon’s Triumph. Έγινε σαφές κατά την χοντρική και σίγουρα ελλιπή περιγραφή των όσων διαδραματίζονται πάνω στο ταμπλό οτι το παιχνίδι αυτό δεν έχει κάποιον μηχανισμό ο οποίος να δημιουργεί γεγονότα ή αποτελέσματα/συνέπειες ενεργειών για λογαριασμό του παίκτη. Αυτό μπορεί να επισύρει την κριτική οτι το παιχνίδι έχει έναν χαρακτήρα απόλυτα ντετερμινιστικό, ότι δηλαδή εξομοιώνει μια κατάσταση κατά την οποία ο παίκτης έχει τον απόλυτο έλεγχο και ο,τιδήποτε το απρόβλεπτο απουσιάζει, κάτι που φυσικά παρασάγγας απέχει από την πραγματικότητα μιας μάχης. Η διαδικασία και το αποτέλεσμα μιας μάχης δεν είναι ποτέ κάτι το προβλέψιμο, ακόμα και αν ξέρουμε τις αρχικές της συνθήκες. Μάχη=χάος. Γνωστό από την εποχή του Σουν Τζου, 2.500 χρόνια πριν.

Από τότε όμως είναι επίσης γνωστό και το εξής: οτι ο διοικητής που θα κάνει τους πιό πολλούς υπολογισμούς και ταυτόχρονα θα είναι σε θέση να εκμεταλλευτεί την ευκαιρία που απρόσμενα θα του παρουσιαστεί θα είναι ο νικητής. Ένα το κρατούμενο.

Το Napoleon’s Triumph είναι ένα παιχνίδι όπου, παρόλη την απουσία ενός μηχανισμού σαν αυτόν που αναφέρθηκε παραπάνω καθώς και την απλότητά του, το χάος της μάχης μας δηλώνει παρόν με τον πιό κατηγορηματικό(και ενδιαφέροντα) τρόπο. Οι κινήσεις, η σταδιακή αποδόμηση των σωμάτων, ο περιορισμός στις ανεξάρτητες εντολές, η πολυπλοκότητα του πεδίου, ο μηχανισμός του αρχικού στησίματος, η έλλειψη πληροφοριών για την οργάνωση του αντίπαλου στρατεύματος, όλα σε συνδυασμό με τις αποφάσεις του αντιπάλου, οδηγούν από την αρχική εικόνα απόλυτης οργάνωσης και τάξης σε μια απίστευτη κατάσταση όπου ο παίκτης, και ειδικά αυτός που οδηγεί τον συμμαχικό στρατό, χάνει τον πλήρη έλεγχο του στρατεύματός του και αναγκάζεται, πέρα από το αρχικό σχέδιο, να προσαρμοστεί στις συνθήκες που επικρατούν από γύρο σε γύρο. Το στράτευμα έχει την ανάγκη του διοικητή του παντού και εκλιπαρεί για εντολές, μα αυτός μπορεί να οδηγήσει κάποιες μονάδες τη φορά. Το ότι το στράτευμα είναι σε γενικές γραμμές ένα σταθερό και αξιόπιστο στράτευμα το οποίο δεν ρίχνει από πλεονεκτική θέση βολές στο γάμο του καραγκιόζη όταν διαταχθεί να κάνει επίθεση είναι στα απόλυτα υπέρ του παιχνιδιού. Χάος δεν σημαίνει τύχη. Σημαίνει μη προβλέψιμη πολυπλοκότητα, και ο σχεδιαστής το στοιχείο αυτό έχει καταφέρει να το ενσωματώσει στο παιχνίδι του απόλυτα χωρίς ζάρια, πολύπλοκους πίνακες με αριθμητικά στοιχεία, σωρούς από κάρτες ή ο,τιδήποτε άλλο. Ο παίκτης παρ’όλα αυτά νιώθει πραγματικά την αγωνία του στρατεύματός του το οποίο προσπαθεί απεγνωσμένα να επιβιώσει κάτω από μια πολύ δύσκολη συνθήκη, η οποία είναι πέρα από τον άμεσο έλεγχό του.

αρχή του παιχνιδιού

προς το τέλος της παρτίδας, το χάος είναι απόλυτο!

Ας μην ξεχνάμε για τι μιλάμε: μιλάμε για ένα παιχνίδι μάχης και όχι για μια μάχη. Αυτόματα μιλάμε για δύο εντελώς διαφορετικά πράγματα, τόσο αντίθετα μάλιστα ώστε ποτέ να μην μπορούν να συγκριθούν. Έιναι και τα δυο ανταγωνιστικά γεγονότα σαφώς, μα το ένα είναι ένα ζήτημα ζωής και θανάτου, σωτηρίας ή δυστυχίας για χιλιάδες ή και εκατομμύρια ανθρώπων το οποίο λαμβάνει χώρα στον πραγματικό κόσμο, ενώ το άλλο είναι ένας τεχνητός τρόπος να περνάμε ένα ευχάριστο απόγευμα σπάζοντας πλάκα στα άνετα σαλόνια μας γυμνάζοντας ευχάριστα τον νου μας, προσπαθώντας δηλαδή να καταβάλλουμε τον νου του αντιπάλου μέσα σε ένα πλαίσιο το οποίο κάθε φορά ορίζει ένας αριθμός κανόνων και το οποίο δεν πρόκειται να πλησιάσει ούτε στο ελάχιστο την πολυπλοκότητα και το επίπεδο της λεπτομέρειας που επηρρεάζει την μάχη στην πραγματικότητα. Οι διαφορές(στον σκοπό κατ’αρχήν) είναι αχανείς ποσοτικά και ποιοτικά και αν αρχίσω να κάνω ακόμα και μια επιγραμματική λίστα, το ήδη μακρύ και κουραστικό μου κείμενο θα ξεφύγει εντελώς σε έκταση!

Σε ένα παιχνίδι λοιπόν, μάχης ή ο,τιδήποτε, αυτό που θέλω προσωπικά είναι να νικήσω την σκέψη του αντιπάλου με την σκέψη μου. Να κάνω υπολογισμούς, να του στήσω παγίδες, να αποφύγω τις δικές του, να τον παραπλανήσω, να αποφύγω να παραπλανηθώ, να επιστρατεύσω την δημιουργική μου φαντασία ώστε να επινοήσω τακτικές,να καταστρώσω ένα νικηφόρο σχέδιο και να το φέρω σε πέρας παρά την αντίστασή του. Και όλα αυτά, χωρίς εξωγενείς παρεμβολές. Θα το παρομοιάσω με δύο μεθυσμένους αλήτες που τσακώνονται. Αν εσύ προσπαθήσεις να παρέμβεις στον καυγά για να τους ηρεμήσεις, κάλλιστα μπορεί να στραφούν εναντίον σου: «Τι ανακατεύεσαι ρε? Άσε μας να πλακωθούμε με την ησυχία μας!». Η γνώμη μου είναι πως το καλό παιχνίδι πρέπει να στήνει το σκηνικό του καυγά, το βρώμικο σοκκάκι, και να αφήνει τους μεθυσμένους να λύσουν τις διαφορές τους και όχι να είναι ο περαστικός που παίρνει και αυτός μέρος. Αυτό, βέβαια, είναι θέμα γούστου δικού μου και των συμπαικτών μου και εξήγησα οτι εδώ εκφράζω απόψεις προσωπικές, ως μικρή συμβολή στον μακρύ διάλογο σχετικά με τον παράγοντα τύχη στα πολεμικά παιχνίδια και τα επιτραπέζια εν γένει.

Δεν με ενδιαφέρει, λοιπόν, να χτυπήσει τον διοικητή του αντιπάλου μου ένας κεραυνός στην κεφάλα επειδή έβρεχε την ώρα της μάχης, να τον κάνει κάρβουνο και εγώ μετά ωραίος και άνετος να κυνηγήσω τον τσακισμένο στο πνεύμα στρατό του, ακόμα και αν αυτό ήταν που συνέβη ιστορικά στην μάχη αυτή. Δεν με ενδιαφέρει τόσο το να με βοηθήσει ή να μου αντισταθεί το ίδιο το παιχνίδι-εμένα ή τον αντίπαλό μου και η παρτίδα να είναι ένας αγώνας προσαρμογής στα τερτίπια των μηχανισμών, όσο πλάκα και αν έχει. Και αυτό γιατί τότε θα αισθάνομαι οτι το παιχνίδι παίζει εμένα και όχι εγώ αυτό. Αυτό που με ενδιαφέρει είναι να μου δημιουργήσει αρχικές συνθήκες τέτοιες οι οποίες θα οδηγήσουν εμένα και τον αντίπαλο σε μια σύγκρουση η οποία θα έχει μεν τον χαρακτήρα της πραγματικής(συμπεριλαμβανομένου, πάντα, του χαους), θα την διεξάγουμε όμως εγώ και αυτός μεσα σε ένα περιβάλλον με ευρύτατο φάσμα δυνατοτήτων για στρατηγικές και τακτικές αποφάσεις, με παρόν το στοιχείο της προσαρμοστικότητας το οποίο είναι, φυσικά, βασικότατο και αυτό χωρίς όμως τελικά το παιχνίδι να παρεμβαίνει αποφασιστικά στην αλληλεπίδρασή μας και στο τελικό αποτέλεσμα. Αυτό, αντίθετα δυστυχώς από τα περισσότερα επιτραπέζια που έχω υπόψη μου, είναι το Napoleon’s Triumph. Είναι αφηρημένο, αλλά δεν είναι σκάκι. Είναι η μάχη του Austerlitz με πλήθος από τα βασικά ιστορικά της χαρακτηριστικά παρόντα κατά το δυνατόν, την οποία όμως θα κερδίσει ο ικανότερος στρατηγός και παρόλο το χάος και την αβεβαιότητα δεν θα λυθεί μέσω της παραμικρής μεσολάβησης της τύχης. Είναι σίγουρα το καλύτερο πολεμικό παιχνίδι της μικρής συλλογής μου και βάζει τον πήχυ πολύ ψηλά για τα επόμενα.

by JonPrud

It is a summer evening and I am sitting in a café, Belgian beer in hand. The position looks good. I have made my 5 point, escaped my back men, and there are blots to be hit. It looks like I am ahead in the pip count, too (although I am not as thorough here as I should be - a habitual weakness). It is early, and there are still plenty of mistakes to avoid. I reach for the cube and set it before my opponent. "I double." Do I detect the briefest of grimaces?

He is already six points back. If he accepts and gammons, it would only be two. He has not enjoyed the session so far - the dice are not rolling his way. And now the cube makes its appearance. A foreigner who does not speak the language is going to come into his café and push him around? Hardly! The time has come to teach this brash American some humility. "I take."

I am fascinated. With the cube offered, the Jacobi Rule makes gammons a real threat. I begin to regret negotiating the stakes down to 3 euro a point - I should have had more confidence in myself. Best not to get greedy, tho. A win here will cover my entry costs for all of the tournaments of my vacation - nothing to complain about. Pick up the dice and roll - time to hit a blot and bring this one home...

It is situations like these that bring games to life for me. Backgammon is the quintessential roll-and-move game. Some dice games offer little player interaction and substitute press-your-luck for tension. Not so with Backgammon. Every roll of the die, every move of a checker carries the potential for disaster.

Backgammon is a racing game where the players move in opposite directions around the board. The race is 24 points long, with one player moving clockwise and the other counterclockwise. The 24 points of the race are divided into four groups of six - called boards. The object of the game is to move all 15 of your pieces into your home board. Once you have done this, you are allowed to start moving checkers off the end of the board - called bearing off. Be the first to bear off all of your pieces to win.

Only one player’s pieces are allowed to occupy any given point. If you have two pieces on a point, you the have "made the point" and are safe - the opponent may not land there. A lone checker is called a blot and may be hit and sent to the bar if the opponent lands there. Pieces on the bar must be moved back onto their opponent’s home board before any other piece may move. Hitting blots and keeping them on the bar is the primary method to acquire and keep an advantage. If your opponent cannot bring in a piece, the turn is lost and you move again.

On your turn, you throw two dice. The numbers rolled indicate how far checkers must move. The die are applied individually, thus a roll of 4-2 allows one checker to move 4 and another 2. If the same piece is to be moved, it must be able to stop on an open point in between the rolled numbers. If your opponent has made consecutive points - called a prime - your checkers may get stuck and not be able to move. The building and maintaining of a prime is the second method of holding an advantage over your opponent. If the same number appears on both dice - called doubles - you make four moves instead of two. A lucky double can cause a radical swing in the game.

Several games can be played together in a tournament-type match or a cash session. Winning a single game counts as one point. If you manage to bear off all of your pieces before any of your opponent’s checkers have been born off, you win a gammon - worth 2 points. If your opponent still has a checker on the bar or in your home board when you bear your last piece off, you win a backgammon - worth 3 points.

Many dice games are prone to the miracle comeback. One player has meticulously played - minimized every risk while maximizing every opportunity. When the end game approaches, the opponent suddenly starts rolling exactly the numbers they need for an odds-defying win. Backgammon was no exception - until the invention of the doubling cube. The doubling cube is a six sided die with the numbers 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, and 64 on the faces - it tracks how many points a win is worth. On your turn - before you roll - you can offer to double the stakes of the game. Your opponent can either concede the game at the current stake, or accept the cube and play for double the stake. Once you have accepted a double, you "own the cube" and only you may offer to increase the stakes. Have a strong but not perfect passion? Offer the cube and see if your opponent wants to risk twice as much to go for a ridiculous win. But be warned - the cube is a harsh master. Knowing when to offer, take, and drop the cube is a difficult proposition. Professionals and world champions do not always agree on "correct" cube action. Even the calmest parlor will erupt into debate on the merits of an "easy take" or "obvious drop" sooner or later.

The doubling cube has many subtleties. Depending on how many points you and your opponent need to win a match, correct cube action can vary wildly. Have a good position you would like to double? If your opponent redoubles you and wins, would you lose the match? Don’t double. Does your opponent need only one more point to win the match? Offer the cube - regardless of your board position - losing two points is the same as losing one, but you can gain twice as much from a win. In cash games, the Jacobi Rule is often in effect - gammons and backgammons are only worth a single point each, unless the cube has been offered. Want to score a gammon? You will have to offer the cube early enough that your opponent will take, but not so late that it is obvious that a gammon is in the making.

The mix of luck and skill in Backgammon is a heady combination. Go to a Chess tournament, and you will hear little more than the clacking of pieces and the slapping of game clocks. Maybe some whispers in the crowd around a tense match. In a Backgammon parlor, everyone will hoot and holler when the dice come up in that one combination that brings someone from certain defeat to a crushing victory. Depending on how the bones roll, it can be a noisy night.

Good at probability? Have a memory for game positions? Want some excitement? Play some Backgammon and roll, move, win!

by bfundak

As someone who games over a lunch hour, duration and portability are things I think about when purchasing a game. While many games in the market are doable in under and hour, it's always good to have something that can be put in your pocket and carried around with you. Michael Schacht's Coloretto is such a game.

Coloretto is compact--the whole game comes in box that can fit in one's purse or pocket and is made up of a deck of 63 cards in 7 different colors (9 of each) featuring a picture of a lizard with a background. In addition, there are 3 wild cards that look like rainbow lizards, and 10 "+2" cards, which are simple cards that indicate that you get 2 points (more on that later.) The nice things about the cards is that while the one side of the card is vibrantly colored, the card back is in grayscale, which stands as a stark counterpoint to the "play side" of the cards. It's that sort of small detail that I like for a game that is essentially about collecting colored cards. There are also cards that exist as landing spots for the cards as they are dealt out (and then taken) by players. The nice thing about these cards is that they are multi-sided to help play one of two versions of the game as described in the rules and there is a special set for a two player game, which has slightly different rules.

Basically, the idea of the game is that you are attempting to collect sets of the multi-colored cards for points. In the "brown" version of the game, the more cards of a given set you have, the more points you get. In the "gray" version of the game, it pays to be more precise, as sets of 3 or 4 are worth more than a set of 6 or more. The catch, however, is that if you have more than 3 sets of colored cards, you take a penalty for having them. So for example, if someone has yellow, green and blue sets and then is forced to take a gray card through game play, that player will now take a 3 point hit for having more than 3 sets of colors. Players draw cards and place them on the landing spots where they see fit. A player can place a card on their turn or take the cards on the spot, but if they do the latter, they are no longer allowed to draw cards and place them. Since there are only 7 colors to deal with, game play is incredibly quick and there are many opportunities for screwage, if that's something you enjoy when gaming. Someone might place one of the wild cards or +2 bonus cards on one of the landing spots looking to grab it and then their opponent may drop a color on that spot that would lead to them losing 3 points thanks to an extra color. Coloretto forces these sorts of quick tactical decisions, which I think makes the game more fun. The box states that the game should take 30 minutes to play, but once you understand how it works, a game should finish in 15-20 minutes.

Coloretto is not a game that is so earth shattering that it will change your view of gaming, and if you want something with more theme, depth and the accompanying overhead that comes with it, you can try Schacht's Zooloretto, which implements the same selection scheme (except with tiles, not cards) and can also be played in under an hour. But if you are looking for a game that is compact and certain to be played, possibly three to four times in one lunch hour, then Coloretto is a game you might want to check out.

by FlashPan

After a few days wait my game finally arrived.

The box was in great shape, no visible signs of damage - overall it looks pretty solid. Its external surfaces are kind of like a non-gloss canvas texture.

Components included:
1 x Letter from Uwe
1 x 19 page full colour glossy rule book.
1 x 20 page full colour glossy scenario book with 15 scenarios.
2 x Glossy full colour 2 sided card summary sheets
4 x Glossy full colour player track sheets
75 (quick count) x Glossy 2 sided frictionless* full colour cards
6 x double sided map overlays
70 x Full colour double sided German counters on one counter sheet
70 x Full colour double sided Russian counters on one counter sheet
70 x Full colour double sided play aid counters on one counter sheet.
4 x Full Colour folding mapboard
2 x D6 Dice

*The cards have to be held to be believed. They are just so 'slidey'! Very handy for shuffling.

I have posted up a picture from the dodgy camera on my Palm at http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/798806/conflict-of-heroes... showing the unpunched box contents.

The first thing that hits you is the overall quality of the components. This has been said many times before, but is something that immediatly pops out at you open the box.

In an age of boardgames with cheap components this makes a refreshing change. Some might say this is because its a 'Euro-game' (whatever one of those is) - well if it is - then I like Euro-games!

The counters are completely different from any I've owned before. For a start they are full colour and for seconds they are LARGE! I much prefer this size to the fiddly infantry counters in ASL - anyone try to fight a packed street battle in ASL knows what I mean....

The other outstanding feature of the counters is that they are held in their frames incrediably lightly. You only have to look at them and they fall out of the frame. Ok - slight exageration, but after I took the photo, three of them dropped out!

What's more when they fall out of their frames the counters are prefectly shaped and exhibit no bumps of other unsightly artefacts.
This means that you need not bring a modelling knife with you - its simply not required!

This was wholely unexpected. All of my old games, with perhaps the exception of Cry Havoc required skilled use of a modelling knife, otherwise the back of the counters would separate!

The map overlays were another surprise. The only overlays I have prior to this are ASL overlays. These (at least the ones I have) are one sided and printed on very thin card. Another issue with the ASL overlays, is that one needs a pair of scissors and skilled cutting as they are not die-cut!

COH's overlays are of very thick card - at least as thick as the counters and are two sided. Although the thickness surprised me, the biggest surprise is that like the counters they are pre-cut and just itching to fall out of their frames.

The map boards are mounted on pretty thick card and unlike the ones I'm used to fold so that the map side folds outwards. All my previous games fold inwards.

A cursory look at the maps reveals a host of fine detail - looks like the graphics artists were having a field day.

I was very pleased to be getting mounted maps in a day and age where most maps are just paper maps.

That said I have noticed that the maps are not sealed around the edges with the backing material like the old AH boards, so I'm not sure if this will affect longetivity - though they should last a lot longer than the paper affairs from competitors. I guess one advantage with this contruction is that the hexes of two adjoining maps can be matched perfectly without any map edges getting in the way.

Both booklets are very well done. As others have said they are very well laid out with colour registration being carried out accurately.

This boardgame posesses by far the best quality components that I've ever had. To say that I'm impressed is an understatement.

I have thoroughly enjoyed the four solo games (yes this game solos very well - or at least its prediocessor does) I played on VASSAL. From an old timer used to ASL it was a major eye opener. Could rules have advanced so much in the period of time I stopped playing? I think I have to answer that with a resounding yes.

Sure, ASL has more detail, but you really pay for that in terms of fluidity of game play and frequent rules look ups. With COH I was up and running for the first two scenarios within 20 minutes or so. The rules are so simple I could just play and concentrate on tactics.

I know the rules in SoS are slightly different, but I have also heard they are better(!) So I'm really looking forward to going through them using the programmed instruction format.

I've said this before, but I think these rules represent a evolution in squad level combat of the type seen when Squad Leader first came out. The combination of simplicity, fluidity and accuracy is outstanding. I particularly like the way players are given a huge range of options every time a unit is activated or uses an action.

I have to say having the original CoH available on VASSAL effectively sealed my decision to buy after only my first game. I think all companies should offer their products up on VASSAL as its good advertising and allows the community to play electronically at times where face to face games would be impossible - a big plus in my book.

Next month I will be purchasing the first module and my intention is to get hold of the Western front modules the second they become available!

Well done Uwe for one of the most fun and compelling tactical games to come out in a long while!

RobP
http://AncientArmies.co.uk

by wonderwitch

Last night the husband and I actually had a free moment to dive into our board game closet and pull out a new game. Ooh. Aah. We have approximately 8 or 9 games that are still never played, some of them still in the shrink (for shame!). And last night's choice was....The Market of Alturien--"a game for 2 to 6 crafty traders".

We picked this up at Origins 2010 on super discount, and have let it sit ever since June. Last night, we peeled off the shrink wrap on this giant box, and here's how it went.

First Impressions
Just examining the box it's hard not to notice how large it is. Unlike so many Euro games, it's not especially thick, but due to its large board size, this puppy is going to take up 12"x17" of your game closet space. The box artwork is absolutely beautiful and already tells me that some thought and care went into the game design. Awesome.

The Unboxing
Here are some shots from the unboxing. As you can see from the top photo, the box comes with full-color glossy instructions (which, by the way, were extremely easy to follow and well-written), large size board, a bag full of plastic "trade houses" in an assortment of 6 rather impressive colors: Yellow, fuschia, orange, black, green, and blue. (It's a shame they didn't pop for wooden pieces instead of plastic, which really could've elevated the game.) The game also comes with 7 plastic figures as shoppers and a thief (beautifully designed!), a deck of assorted gameplay cards, 2 special D6s, play money (nothing fancy, very Monopoly-esque), and two black cloth bags for part storage (score!).

The Game Play
Okay, so the game play is actually very simple. Players claim markets using their little plastic "trade house" pagodas, and then each turn is spent rolling dice and moving the "customer" figures around the board, and aiming them at markets you've claimed so they'll give you money for purchases. And money is king in this game, you need to save up enough bucks to buy "Prestige Cards". Purchasing three Prestige Cards before anyone else will win you the game. During a players turn, after the customers have been moved, players can use their money to buy "investments", which can include upgrades, new markets, and whatnot. Players also have to worry about a thief (the man in black) roaming the board. He, too, is controlled by other players and dice rolls. If he lands on your market, whoever placed him there gets to steal some of your money. Since the thief can't steal from the player with the least amount of money, his function in the game is to really act as the great equalizer.

The Review (based on a 2-player game)
To start with, this is one beautiful game. The board is artfully created and the customers and robbers really add to the game's prestige points (ha!...ahh, game humor). It's a shame they cheaped out on the Monopoly-type money and the plastic trade houses, since it took a game that could've been really elegant and made it resemble a Milton Bradley offering. The gameplay itself was really simple to catch onto. Let's be clear here: This is not a deep game--this is the type of thing you can pick up and play while watching a movie or chatting with friends. Note I don't necessarily mean this as a criticism, since sometimes we need a break from the deeper strategy gauntlets.

Beginning the game, we start off with the robber not in play and at first the gameplay focuses on just scooting those little shoppers around the board, building up your markets, and buying investments. Cash is free-flowing. On the surface, this may make the game seem too simple, but there is a certain deeper strategy that experienced and stealthy players can employ to make the game a cute combination of Chess and Nuns on the Run. I'm usually not a fan of games that depend on dice rolls too greatly, but the element of chance is minimal since a single roll doesn't impact game strategies too greatly. In other words, you roll those dice often enough that the chance factor takes a back seat to overarching strategies about where to aim the shoppers on the board and when to remove a heavy spender from one of your opponent's markets. Screwing people over has never been so much fun.

But then the robber entered the game--the great equalizer. And that's when the game took a slide. The problem is the robber equalizes too much. Basically, opponents move him around the board and whenever he lands on an opponents market, he steals money from the market and gives it to the player moving him. This happens every. single. turn. since people who move the robber can then proceed to roll the dice again (feasibly even moving the robber a second time). And since the person with the least amount of money gets control of the City Guard Card, which makes you immune to robbery, the person in last place can REALLY clean up.

In a two player game, this is devastating. I, as the orange player, was in a healthy lead with two Prestige Cards already in my figurative pocket (we opted to play to four prestige points), and the husband had none. I also had a stack of dough a mile high...until the robber started to take away $2 here, $4 there, and then all of a sudden I couldn't keep up with his thievery. And I couldn't hit back. That was the worst. There was no consequence to the husband just striking with the robber over and over. So in the end, I essentially just handed the husband all of my money until we were on completely even footing (which is the point when the City Guard Card and its immunity can finally change hands). The game was unjustly close at the end, and the husband pulled out a narrow victory, which even he admitted was completely unfair. I unabashedly submit that I should have won the game. My placement strategy was better, my clever Customer movement was spot-on, and my cash management was effective. I did all I could to fight off the robber, but I never stood a chance. He was too powerful.

So by the time the game was over, I had enjoyed parts of the gameplay, but I was kicking the gravel and muttering to myself about the unbalanced robber play. Perhaps in a 3+ player game this wouldn't be such an issue. But since the husband and I almost exclusively play 2-player games, I think next time we will either remove the City Guard Card (and therefore revoke robber immunity), or remove the robber altogether. With a little tweaking this could be a nice, light game for a weeknight (...or for slower friends). Kids and families could certainly enjoy this game as the turns move quickly, the games don't take too long (about 40 min. in our case), and the game is just overall light and airy. No inappropriate themes here, either.

Overall, I'm grading this game based on how enjoyable it was, how well the game was crafted, and how likely I'll be to play this again. The bottom line is that it will hold a space in my game closet...at least for the time being...and we'll probably play it a handful of times down the road. But this isn't a classic I'll cling to. C+

The full photos to go with the review can be found with its original posting at our Adventures in Board Gaming blog: http://AdventuresInBoardGaming.blogspot.com

by rddfxx

Introduction

This year (early August, 2010) I stopped off at the World Boardgaming Championships (WBC) in in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, for an all too brief two-and-one half day visit. My intention was to play in the Richard III tournament and to get an overall impression of the WBC, which I had never before attended. Well, there was more than enough time to peruse the dealer exhibits on the Friday before my tournament started, and peruse them I did. Catching my eye right away was the L2 Design booth and its latest offering, The Grand Fleet by Stephen Newberg, which was actually printed shortly before, and assembled practically on the road, to the WBC.

I had a chance to speak to the designer, Stephen Newberg, who was there manning the booth. Now, I had not heard of this game before the convention, but once I got the idea it was the next chapter -- a prequel, really -- to the War at Sea (WAS)/Victory in the Pacific (VITP) family, I was on board and reaching for the (golly, empty) wallet, a situation quickly addressed at the nearest ATM.

Grand Fleet (GF) models the struggle between Germany and the Allied powers -- most notably the United Kingdom -- for control of the sea lanes into northern Europe during the Great War, 1914-1918. The classic game on the subject is Avalon Hill’s Jutland (1967), which I played as a youngster back in the day. In some respects Grand Fleet is a remarkable melding of the WAS system with the exciting battle line action of Jutland, without the physical abuse of having to crawl around the floor, nautical movement gauge in hand, in order to fight the good fight (but wasn’t it a lot of fun when the knees were young and the heart willing?).

Components

1. 22” x 28” map of the North Sea and environs printed on very heavy card stock
2. 264 1.25” by 5/8 “ inch very high quality fleet, battle group and ship die cut counters
3. 108 9/16” die cut damage, disabled and sunk (assorted admin) counters
4. 1 die (goodness, you need a lot more than that to play, but the little buggers co$t)
5. Fleet and battle group organizational charts for each side
6. Battle board
Sequence of play summary chart
Rulebook

The components are of an excellent quality. The map and the charts are printed on a slick, heavy stock, perhaps equivalent to a single ply high gloss plate; the large counters are really gorgeous with period ship silhouettes. The legibility of the minor unit flotilla counters could have been improved had they used single ship silhouettes instead of crowding multiple images on the same counter, but that is a trifling complaint when stacked against the overall quality of the very well done major unit images. More dice would be nice, too, but then again perhaps those of us with plenty of dice already don’t want to pay for more. The play aids -- organizational charts and battle board -- are functional and easily augmented as we shall probably see as intrepid gamers take up the challenge of play and begin to post home made alternatives in the files section of Boardgamegeek.

The System

A lot of game is packed into the relatively small rulebook. Although the basic shell of the game is the old tried and true WAS/VITP system, the differences are significant. [Many gamers out there probably don’t know about and/or have never seen GF’s older siblings; the good news is WAS is available from L2 Design].

The WAS/VITP game system is built around a relatively simple resource allocation model. The game map is divided into historically significant strategic areas, into which the players allocate their naval and air resources. Players earn points for controlling areas on the map; such control is achieved essentially by overwhelming your opponent’s resources in each area by fighting battles small and large. Battles are simple affairs as each asset in the fight has an attack die rating which determines the number of dice rolled for that asset; the dice that come up 5 (disable) and 6 (hit) whittle away the enemy fleet. Assets have defense ratings that indicate the amount of damage each asset may sustain before sinking, but most hits scored are serious business for the survival of the asset.

GF amplifies and enriches the WAS/VITP system by adding layers of detail relating to the fog of war and period specific variations. Most important is the notion of the fleet and the battle group. Basic WAS/VITP relied on the alternating sequence in which players committed assets to the areas on the map in order to generate shock and awe, and occasionally not a little surprise. In GF, the sequence of deploying assets, while still important, is much less so as the main combat assets are deployed by battle group, and the composition of the battle groups is kept hidden; the battle group markers are deployed face down -- all your opponent sees is either the German naval ensign or a collection of allied naval ensigns. The organizational charts where the actual ships comprising the battle groups are stacked are kept from your opponent’s view. Prior to combat in a given area, the players conduct search and screen combat before the battle lines engage (more on this below).

After reading the rulebook a couple of times, I still had questions which I posed to designer Newberg (henceforth “Steve”) on the Consimworld Forum in the Grand Fleet folder. A first play through generated a host of additional questions, which again I passed by Steve on Consimworld. The bottom line is the available on-line resources certainly complement the rulebook, so a little effort pays off. And it may take most gamers several play throughs to fully understand the game and its mechanics, which is typically the case with wargames of moderate complexity.

Of Fleets and Battle Groups

Each side in GF is allotted 8 battle groups (BG), which may be deployed independently or collected into stacks to form fleets, of which each side has two markers, representing the British Grand and Channel Fleets, and the German High Seas and Baltic Fleets. Any or all of the BGs may be stacked together in a single sea area under one of these fleet counters, during the movement phase, to dynamically form the fleet named on the counter. Indeed, each side may form either or both fleets each turn in the same or in different sea areas as suits their battle aims. The allies may occasionally but not reliably have the use of a 9th BG, for the Russian fleet, and (via an optional rule) even a 10th BG for the (optional) French fleet. The American navy, which enters play late in the game, does not have its own BG marker(s), rather its assets will be distributed among the British BGs as they are brought into play.

[And now here’s a hint. If your first game goes like mine, you’ll be tempted to use and overuse those fleet markers by fighting one major fleet action after another, until both the allied and German navies are shot to hell by about, hmmmm, the end of 1915. But the allied navy will rebuild through the arrival of heavy re-enforcements throughout the war; the German navy won’t -- there just isn’t very much in the German pipeline-- so watch out. More on this below.]

But what is a BG? A BG is comprised of two components, a screen and a main battle line (MBL). The screen many have any, all or none of the following ship types: minor units submarines (SS) and /or destroyer/torpedo boat flotillas (DT), and major units light (CL) and/or armored cruisers (CA). Screens provide two crucial functions in GF: search and screen combat. The MBL may contain any, all or none of the major unit types: dreadnoughts (BB), battlecruisers (BC), and/or pre-dreadnought battleships (BA). The MBL provides a single function: multiple rounds of ship-to-ship combat versus opposing MBL(s).

A BG may have no naval units at all assigned to it; such a null BG may be deployed on the map as a decoy, but it cannot control an area. Control of an area requires at least two major units, whether they are deployed in a BG(s) or individually as independent major units.

There are 14 areas on the GF map over which the navies will contend, so the limited numbers of BGs must be allocated and used wisely. Fortunately, not all of the map areas are created equally as the points earned for controlling them are different for each player. Thus, either side may have the luxury of committing their old, attenuated pre-dreadnought warships as “independent major units”, i.e. not deployed in a BG(s), to hold and control the rear areas -- if you deploy at least two but no more than four in the same area -- while the battlegoups contend for the front line and high value point areas. This is a boon especially for the British player, who has a large number of these old girls at anchor in ports around the UK, and a large number of low point value areas around the periphery of the map that the former can shepherd for points as the latter are generally inaccessible to the German player. Independent major units are fine in the shepherd’s role, but they literally cannot contend with a BG, so they cannot control any area that can be reached by an enemy battlegoup (that isn’t a shipless decoy).

Combat Resolution

After the allied and German navies complete movement, the German player initiates the Combat Phase by selecting a first (any) sea area for combat resolution. The procedures for resolving combat in an area are carefully described in the rulebook, but one needs to pay close attention to appreciate and understand all of the fine points. At the beginning of combat resolution in a chosen area, neither side knows anything more than the number of counters on the map.

Mine Warfare

The first phase of combat resolution is the mine warfare resolution segment. For this phase, both sides reveal -- turn over -- any mine layer (ML), mine sweeper (MS) and airship (AS) counters in the given sea area. These are independent minor units that are not -- and cannot be -- part of any BG; rather they are independent assets that players move into sea areas during movement in support of (or in lieu of) BGs and/or major independent units. Mine layers can be deadly, and may potentially deliver up to 6 mine attacks per counter on the opposing fleet if not countered by sweepers and airships; basically, each pair of sweepers (MS) negates one layer (ML). A single MS, curiously, is ineffective. For each ML that is effective -- not offset by MS units --- the owning player rolls a 1D6 to generate the number of mine attack on the enemy forces. Each enemy airship (AS) in the area offsets one mine attack. The targets of the mine attacks are determined, somewhat painfully, by random selection. Players should take care during the laborious mine target selection procedure to conceal from their opponent any and all details about their forces in the area except for the actual targets of the mine attacks; the rules are not fast and fixed on how this should be done, but they do offer up some alternative procedures, so be creative. The mine attacks are resolved on the mine attack table, resulting in damage, disabling, sinkage or (whew!) no effect [NOTE: the table lists 1 HIT, 2 HITs and 3 HITs for MU, but what is actually meant is 1 to 3 points of damage, and not the ever much worse 1 to 3 HITS].


Search

Having resolved the mine attacks, play proceeds to the search phase. At this point all we have learned is what we needed to know to resolve the mine attacks, and what the carnage has been as a result of those attacks. Now comes the nitty gritty struggle to assert superiority in the search phase. A player with no BGs (and thus no fleets either) in the given sea area cannot search and cannot fight, and immediately cedes control to the player (if any) who does. Assuming both sides have BG(s), a search value (SV) is computed for each BG in the area; the values for the BGs comprising a fleet are added together to provide a single SV total for the fleet. The computed SV are modified by adding the search values of any airships (AS) in the area. Note: AS’s modify the SVs of all fleets and independent BGs in the area, but AS units DO NOT search by themselves, thus AS units in a sea area do not compute an SV if there is no BG present.

An SV is computed as follows: for each BG, add +3 for every submarine (SS) unit and +1 for every non SS in its screen. A fleet adds up the the SVs for all of its component BGs. All fleets and independent BGs then add the same modifier for the friendly AS units in the area: each AS adds +(movement factor - distance from its home base port). Each player announces his highest SV value for the sea area, either for a fleet or an independent BG. High total wins the search round in that area.

The side that loses the search round flips all of its remaining counters in the sea area to their front sides, revealing the names of the fleet(s), BGs, and the identities of the independent minor and major units in the area. The losing side must announce the number of counters comprising each fleet and each independent BG; the types and IDs of the counters comprising these are not revealed.

The side that wins the search round may then decide to “disengage by discovery”, i.e. retreat its fleet and BG counters out of the sea area and proceed directly to the anti-shipping warfare (ASW) phase of the combat in the area; or, alternatively, seize the initiative and announce the start of combat versus its choice of a fleet or an independent BG. It may engage the enemy with a fleet OR an independent BG (not both) of its own. The winner of the search round retains the initiative until combat ends in the area, regardless the results of subsequent screen actions (see below).

Screen Battle

The forces engaged -- i.e. those chosen by the initiative player to fight -- participate in a screen battle that entails all of the units in their respective screens. Each unit in the screen battle rolls 1D6, and disables (5) and hits (6) are tallied up. Hit damage is resolved and all sunk and disabled ships are removed from the engaged screens. The side with the most screen units after a round of combat wins the screen battle. Otherwise, the screen battle continues until there is a winner or all of the screen units for both sides have departed (sunk or disabled).

If the winner of the screen battle also won the search round, continue on to the next paragraph below [since the following steps have already been completed]. Otherwise, the side losing the screen battle flips all of its remaining counters in the sea area to their front sides, revealing the names of the fleet(s), BGs, and the identities of the independent minor and major units in the area. The losing side must announce the number of counters comprising each fleet and each independent BG; the types and IDs of the counters comprising these are not revealed.

Winning the screen battle confers benefits similar to winning the search round, but on a smaller scale: the winner may opt to “disengage by screen”, i.e. retreat the engaged fleet and BG counters out of the sea area, or continue on to the MBL combat. However, the winner of the search round retains the initiative, regardless what happens in the screen battle; if his opponent disengages by screen, he may initiate another battle with any as yet unengaged enemy fleet(s) and BG(s) still in the area. If he does engage a second (or third, etc) enemy fleet/BG, he may use the force that just incited the enemy to disengage, or swap it out for another force in the area.

Main Battle Line (MBL) Combat

Now the fun really begins in earnest as the MBLs have at it. The players remove their major unit counters from their holding boxes on the BG organizational displays and line them up nose-to-tail on the Battle Board. The round one bell clangs and players roll dice by the bucket full (if you have ‘em on hand to supplement the one that comes in the box). The ships line up one-to-one, but extras may double up on the shorter enemy MBL. 5’s disable and 6’s hit, randomly generating 1 to 6 points of damage. A major unit (MU) can handle hit damage equal to its defensive rating -- which top out at 5 for the very best BB MU’s -- any damage in excess of the defensive rating sends the MU to Davy Jones’ Locker. There aren’t any Bismarck class MU’s in this game (defensive rating of 9 in WAS); most MU’s are 4 or less, leading to plenty of sinkings on a single hit. MBL combat is lethal, shredding both sides’ assets in quick order.

The current battle proceeds by rounds until one side disengages by one of several methods: “by gunfire”, “by speed”, or (Germans only) “by turn away” [a.k.a the famed “Gefechtskehrtwendung”]. If all of one sides’ ships are sunk or disabled, we have “disengaged by gunfire”. One side can always flee with units that have greater speed ratings than the surviving enemy ships, this is known as “disengaging by speed”. The Gefechtskehrtwendung is a special trick that always takes the German out of harm’s way, “disengaging by turning away” [please note, the term Gefechtskehrtwendung doesn’t actually appear in the rules, but I just can’t resist throwing it into the discussion since my regular gaming partner, a WWI naval expert, rolls it off his tongue every chance he gets :-) ]

If the side with the initiative disengages, combat proceeds to the final ASW phase. Otherwise, the initiative player may opt to engage another enemy fleet/BG -- if one is available -- and we’re back to screen combat. The bottom line is the initiative player -- i.e. the winner of the search round -- is able to fight any and all enemy fleet(s)/BG(s) in the area so long as he keeps winning the MBL rounds until he has established control over the area. Losing screen battles doesn’t disrupt this march to control, apart from possibly letting some enemy forces slip away; however, once he disengages from an MBL fight, leaving surviving enemy forces, the initiative player is pushed out of the area regardless the number of fresh, unengaged friendly fleet(s)/BG(s) still available in the area.

Anti Shipping Warfare (ASW)

ASW is an altogether different kettle of fish than regular battle line combat. This is really an anti-SUBMARINE warfare phase. Surviving German subs (SS) will score victory points for (implicitly) conducting successful anti-shipping warfare if they are located in the special shipping lane areas indicated on the map with a sinking ship icon. After the MBL phase has ended, independent SS units -- those not assigned to BG screens -- are subject to ASW attacks. The German player goes first, as he attempts to disable allied SS by rolling a die for each independent ML and MS he has in the area. An allied SS is disabled for each 5 rolled, and note, 6’s do not hit! German ASW cannot sink allied SS units. Now all of this is probably irrelevant; unless the optional Submarine Attack rule (A11.0) is in play, the only thing allied subs are good for -- and it is a very important function -- is scouting and fighting in a BG screen; SS units in screen are not subject to ASW warfare, so the allied player isn’t going to deploy any independent SS to be attacked by ASW in the first place.

Next the allied player conducts ASW attacks, in which as many as 9 German victory points may be at stake (1 per available, surviving independent German SS, provided they are dispersed through the shipping lanes). Allied independent DT, ML, MS, SS and AS units in the area get to “shoot” at independent German SS by rolling a 1D6 each. Only allied DTs may sink German SS by rolling a 6, otherwise, units disable a German SS by rolling a 5. There is a tradeoff, in so far as German SS assigned to independent anti-shipping duty are not available for the all important BG search screen function, but the VPs available probably mean all German SS units should be sent on independent patrol to the shipping lanes all or most of the time. If they are so deployed, one would anticipate they will draw substantial numbers of allied DT to independent ASW duty in the shipping lanes, weakening the screening forces available to the allied BGs.

A First Game

My first play of Grand Fleet was a no holds barred, bare knuckles slugfest from the first 1914 turn until the High Sea Fleet was bled dry sometime in 1916. There were plenty of gameplay errors by both sides to complement the strategic errors we made as well. Although I took enough notes to reconstruct much of the action, the quality of play was too poor to make it a useful session report. I will however reflect a little on the relative sizes of the combatants and the strategical implications of the force imbalance.

Perhaps the best measure of the “weight of metal” either side can throw in a fight is the proxy provided in the game, the number of attack dice each fleet can throw in battle. Focussing on the primary line of battle ships, the dreadnoughts (BB), battle cruisers (BC) and pre-dreadnought battleships (BA), we have the following:

The British navy has a total of 35 BB, 13 BC and 20 BA which bring, respectively, 140, 36 and 21 attack dice to the party for a total “weight of metal” of 197 dice.
The Russian navy, which may only unreliably and fitfully make an occasional appearance, has 4 BB and 1 BA for 16 and 1 and a total “weight of metal” of 17 dice.
The late arriving Americans bring 9 BB with a total “weight of metal” of 33 dice.
Thus, the allied navies have a total of 247 attack dice.
Arrayed against this is the German navy with 19 BB, 6 BC and 15 BA with respectively 74, 23, and 18 or a total “weight of metal” of 115 dice.

In a worst case scenario, the Germans can bring less than 50% of the hitting power of the allies to an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink kind of battle. In the series of actions I fought as the German against a capable allied admiral I faced much better odds than these, but the results of fighting constant, turn after turn major fleet battles was sobering after 4 turns:

Germans lost 12 BB, 2 BC and 4 BA for an estimated (using average attack dice per ship per class) loss of respectively 47, 8 and 5 or a total loss of 60 dice.
The allies -- all British -- lost 16 BB, 4 BC, and 1 BA , for an estimated 64, 11 and 1 for total of 76 dice.
The relative losses of the German were much higher, leaving a surviving balance of 55 attack dice versus 173 surviving allied attack dice or something on the order of 1-to-3.

The conclusion to be drawn from this first game is the German cannot win a slugfest, so the many other assets in play -- submarines, mines, airships, etc. must be used effectively to complement the main battle lines. The German capital ships are somewhat more robust than the allied ones, averaging nearly 1 full damage point higher in their protection factors, which is enough to explain the significant but strategically marginal advantage the Germans demonstrated in the fleet actions in our game. When next we play -- and we love this game so there will many more next times -- the German will be wiser and more evasive. It also helps that we now know the rules and have the kinks worked out.


Grand Fleet Rules Clarifications & Updates for V1.01 (posted by Stephen Newberg on Consimworld)

1. There is no specific counter example for minor units and it might be good to have one, but the sole value on a minor unit is its movement value.

2. In general definitions in the gun combat section also apply to the mine combat section, but on the Mine Combat Table, the number of hits indicated is the number of damage points taken, not the number of dice to be rolled to determine the number of damage points,

3. The BC Australia was intentionally left out of the counter mix, but if you want to add it back in, you need to add a UK 2-2-4 counter arriving on turn 5.

4. The Anti-Shipping VPs that the German player can earn for SS units are at a maximum of 2 per area per turn.

In 8.2 the Search value of the example for the German player should be 6, not 5.
6. HMS Triumph is not listed on the left of page 10 (the graphic at the bottom of page 10 correctly shows 8 ships in the battle line, but only 7 are named).

by Lawrence Hung

A timely addition to my collection following my increased interest in Washington's War on the American Revoultion. This game focuses on the British southern incursion with the final defeat to the British troops under Cornwallis. Area movement and a Mike Joslyn design of First Team Vietnam fame. Mike has not been active in the past decade. Let's see how he is going with this game.

The map and counters looks a bit dull and boring to me, not my usual apetite expected of Craig Grando. You cannot see the level of details on the map like those you can find on Craig's other maps, even though this game scale is on the strategic side. The map is divided into many map areas and river is black, as opposed to the usual blue, in order to act as a boundary line. It might cause you sometime to adjust to it.

With two and a half pages of bibilography, you expect to find a lot of information and features in the game. Yes, it is. The game has 3 scenarios starting the campagin at different stages and end at the same Oct, 1781 turn. The shortest campaign scenario lasts 8 turns and so it is quite easy to get someone to play with this lure. On the other hand, the whole campaign cost 35-turns to run at monthly turns.

The rules are largely well-written in that you can read them smoothly and understand without constant referencing to other rules. A minor typo is found in 8.0 last paragraph for referring to 8.4 endeavor random event which should be 8.3 instead.

The game system however is not that easy to start with as you can imagine from an ATO game. The game divides a turn into 6 phases (7 if it is the last turn). The importance of sieges, leadership, base of operations, baggage trains and even disease is endorsed in the game. It seems to me that they are quite rightly pointing out the elements of this Revolutionary War in the south. 2 player aid cards. however, are offered one for each player to facilitate play.

Charlestown and Savannah are the two great names of places where the sieges were held during the war. Siege of a city or fort can be made only when there is no enemy force in the same area, with at least 1-1 force ratio. It allows other friendly units' movement across the area where the besieged is located. An interesting point is that the besieging player can call for a surrender by the besieged. If not, a city or fort can stand up to 2 rounds of siege and a final assault is made. If the besieger wins the siege, the besieged eliminated all the fort, baggae trains and militia while the survivors, after detemination of the casualty of the siege result which is largely proportional to the size of the enemy force on a 10:1 scale), are taken as prisoners of war. POWs are either exchanged later or else, subject to POW attrition (yeah, hunger, diease and mal-nutrition in the camp, pal, it ain't no 5-stars hotel).

Movement and combat are performed in the so called "Endeavors" phase. A leader can be activated on a die roll below his "audacity" rating and the size of the army he can bring with him is determined by his rank. There are 4 ranks with 1 to 3 Star General and a Colonel. Each activation, however, would trigger a random event at the same time. The event is related to either weather or loyalist uprising (or nothing happens half of the time). A rainy weather (1/3 of the time in December to May) channels the force movement along the road crossing the river. A back-to-back rain can turn into flood which makes river even impassable. A heat weather will halve the force movement and an attrition roll. Weather, therefore plays a due role in ths colonial period.

From what I count, there are at least 3 dice-rollings per battle: determination of surprise, battle resolution according to the force ratio advantage, and the casualty determination. All 3 together have a dozen modifiers. It might be a little bit more for each battle to someone who finds this be too many for the whole 32-turns campaign. I do not avert to procedural stuffs as long as they convey meaningful messages across.

An overrun can only be made against a maximum of 3 enemy SPs in an area. You spend movement points to perform overrun according to the no. of enemy units in an area. It takes me a while as to see what exactly does it mean in an overrun.

Some interesting tactic to use the retreat rules and movement rules. Leader and his force cannot pick up SPs but can drop off. The retreat rules do not allow a retreat into an area with enemy force but allowable if there is none in the area even though it is where the attacker came. For attack on Beaufort (S10), and other areas access to which with only a single area, therefore, always remember to leave a force behind in order to prevent an enemy retreat before combat and a total elimination of the enemy SPs if they lost the war. An early advantage for the British as they are generally having overwhelming forces.

Base of operations and baggage trains are the supplies centers. Forces without being supplied are subject to attrition. A mobile baggage trains can be turned into a stationery magazine whereas a Base of Operations can be transferred from one area into another area with a month's turn. Continental militia can be supplied own their own turf but Loyalist militia cannot. This subtle difference can cause the British player more over a longer term of gameplay.

Initial low counter density set up makes this game one easy way to go! Overall, I think the system is very rich and sound for the period. The best operational level game for the period too. I hope ATO can release more games with the system in future magazines or Annual.

by hockeyjedi

About 20+ years ago, a high school buddy of mine was heading off for the Navy and gave me his boardgame collection... one of which was the Games Workshop version of DQ including Catacombs and Heroes expansion. It became one of my absolute favorite games for its relentless meanness and unforgiving nature.

Fast forward several years... changes in my life and interests see me selling DQ on Ebay.

Fast forward a few more years and now I am back into boardgaming again with a vengeance. I join a local gaming group where I wind up playing DQ again with one of my favorite people (and BGG villain/anti-hero) Michael Barnes. We joked a lot during set up of the game about "what was the worst way you remember dying in this game?" and my answer was that I am a magnet for the "First tile = Bottomless Pit" curse. We began to play. What do you think happened? Yup. Me, into a pit. Dead. We cracked up, having more fun than one could ever have helping to build a village for a king in some yawn-fest Euro.

As things often do, the group winds up splintering and breaking until it no longer met. I keep thinking that I should get a copy of DQ on Ebay, but it just never seems to pan out. Then, I hear that FFG is re-vamping DQ as they did with Fury of Dracula, Warrior Knights, Arkham Horror, and my other beloved all-time fave; Talisman. My heart leaps!

And now we fast forward one more time to present day: I received my new FFG "re-imagined" DQ as a late b-day gift from my terrific girlfriend (late because of release date. Not her fault.) We set the game up and as I spread out the board and punch out the tiles, waves of nostalgia wash over me. I have come home.

The game is set up now. I give a quick run down of the rules to my GF and her friend who is visiting us for a week. We pick characters. Sarah (the friend) takes Hugo the Glorious (more on that misnomer later). My GF picks Kurtzbeck. I allow my GF to pick for me, as I was still giving rules rundowns during character picking time and she gave me Brother Gherrin.

We rolled for first player and I got the honors. I took bottom left tower entrance and moved up. Pulled a tile. BOTTOMLESS PIT!!! Hell F-ing YEAH!!!!! I did, however survive. In the end, we all died. We played 3 or 4 times, Sarah continuing to try to use Hugo, always entering the Catacombs, always dying. Hugo is just not that Glorious. Out of the 3 or 4 games, Only my GF had a single successful run to and from the Dragon's hoard. I died due to swinging blades, pinned against a wall, and 2 time expirations.

Anyway, on to the review.

Dungeonquest 2.0 is a mean, nasty, lethal game. And it is amazing because of it. In no other game do you have your opponents rooting for you to live while at the same time revelling in your misfortunes. If you are reading this review, chances are you know the mechanics and basic plot of the game, but I will throw in a bit anyway for sake of completeness You and up to 3 other players, are soloing the world's most lethal dungeon in order to escape with some fabulous treasure before the sun sets and the dungeon locks down, trapping you within for a certain death. The gameplay is simple; move to an adjacent space, draw and place a dungeon tile, then draw appropriate card. Try to reach hoard at center, snag some loot, avoid waking the dragon, get back out alive. Much easier said than done,

As far as the base game mechanics go, that is it. there are some options for staying where you are and pulling cards from a "Search" deck, but, other than that, it's "move and lay tile, then draw card".

That is what is so great about this game; it is easy to teach, plays fast, and is addictive.

Now, on to the only major change from the GW version: the combat.

A lot has been said on here about the combat in the new DQ. Some folks love it. Some hate it. And a LOT don't understand it. I will be honest. It is an odd mechanic. It is strangely complicated for such a simple game. It took several combats for me to get the hang of it. When I did, it made perfect sense. It gives the monsters and characters personality and strategy. The "deathblow" mechanic enables any player or monster to have a fighting chance against a much tougher opponent. (My GF controlled a 2 HP skeleton against a full health Hugo, and beat him down to 4 hp before taking a single point of damage on the skelly. The skeleton did finally die once Hugo won a round, but, the damage had been done and Hugo was dead in a couple more turns). I think the problem a lot of folks have is the deathblow. The GW game just used a rock-paper-scissors mechanic to determine damage. The advantage is that it was quick. Disadvantage is that, unless a player was really dumb, fights never really had an outcome in doubt. In the new DQ, the card play gives a good flavor to the fight and the Deathblow makes every fight more and more tense the longer they go on. There still is a R-P-S element to the fights with the counter attacks (most magic attacks can counter ranged, most melee can counter magic, most ranged can counter melee). The trick/strategy is: If you put out a high value card, you might win the round. But, you set yourself up for a major counterattack if the other player plays the right card.

You play a 4 value melee card. Thematically, you come in with a huge swing of your weapon, without any real thought to defense. If the monster takes a shot with his bow (low numbered ranged attack) he counters you by shooting you before you get in striking distance. He can now pile other ranged cards (with the melee counter symbol) on them in order to damage you. Thematically, you came in screaming a war cry, axe held high... and the archer cooly drew his bow back and let fly an arrow into you, Legolas-style. So, instead of your powerful axe swing hitting him, he shot you before you ever got close. Damage to you. His piled Ranged cards stack on your character for damage, and your melee card goes into the Combat Stack.

Next round:

You try another melee strike, but it is a value 1. The monster casts a powerful spell (value 3) at you... Thematically, you swing at the monster, but more cautiously, your guard up. The monster speaks some unholy magic spell and fire blasts from its fingertips toward you. He plays a value 4 magic card. Now, you have the ability to counter as your melee card has the Magic counteratack icon in top right corner. Thematically, you were prepared for him to attack you and you were on guard for it. You look in your hand and you have 2 more melee cards with magic counterattack icons. Both are value 2. While his attack is very powerful, he left himself open. You play your other 2 melee cards in a counterattack. Thematically, you see the opening he left you and you pounce on it, getting a powerful hit. Now, you lay your 3 melee cards on him for damage AND the melee card you left in the Combat Stack last turn, as your winning melee attack card matches the melee attack type (top center icon) of the card in the combat stack. So, you get to lay a total of 4 cards (4 damage) on the monster. Thematically, your raging attack missed in the first round, but, it put you in a better position against your foe, so that when you finally connected with a melee attack, it did even more damage to him.

At first, I thought the combat system was weird and, as others have said, felt "bolted on". But, now after using it more, it has grown on me. It is probably the best way (in a simple game like DQ) to simulate all the moving and jockeying for a good hit that one does in an RPG... but in a relatively short, and actually pretty simple way. I think, as time goes on and people get the hang of it, more and more players will come to appreciate the depth and subtlety of the combat system.

Since the game takes place in FFG's proprietary Terrinoth (Runebound) world, FFG was nice enough to include character cards and tokens so players can take the hapless DQ adventurers into the other Terrinoth games (Runebound, Descent, and Runewars) where they might have a chance of living more than 10-15 minutes. This is a very nice addition and a trend that I hope continues. Also, I hope to see a DQ Heroes expansion with all the Descent/Runebound/Runewars heroes having DQ character sheets... Red Scorpion needs to see how far her teensy little costume will get her in the hell that is Dragonfire Dungeon.

Overall, I am very happy with DQ. It is what I had hoped it would be: fast playing, deadly, and a lot of fun. There are variants in the back to make it slightly less lethal if that appeals to you... but not me. If I can't die in my Bottomless Pit on the very first turn, I'm not playing Dungeonquest. Now, bring on the new DQ Heroes, FFG!!!