Game Night Light 8

Yesterday was weekly game night. And I must say, I wasn't really up to it. But I decided this was the reason I established it. So in the spirit of opposable thumbs and mindless adherence to tradition being the only thing that sets us apart from the animals, game night!

I hauled out an old game that in high school we could finish during study halls, War at Sea. 

I also have expansions from The General and War at Sea 2. Which is good because I'm missing two ship counters. Luckily there are substitutes available from the expansion.

It's a simple, fun, and potentially quick game. I probably haven't played this since college.

Strategies came back to me as I played. Some too late to do any good, and almost always for the British.

The two sides have different force structures and strategies. The British basically need to control the seas while the Germans need to selectively deny it to the British.

Getting three convoys from America to the USSR are important. Although you can send the convoys to Britain for one victory point instead of the dangerous Russia route, which gets you three each. I think I got all three convoys to the USSR, although German air strikes almost got one and another was almost sunk by surface action.

I thought the British could win this but by the last turn the heavily damaged British fleet could barely take to sea. Even with the Americans holding the North Atlantic.

British land-based air was horrible. The Russians achieve nothing before their battleships sank. And the British lost a lot of ships early in battle without really doing much in return. The Germans only once couldn't repair all their damage in Germany in one turn. But the damaged ship could control the Baltic without Russian opposition until it could return for repairs the next turn.

And while I tried to avoid pushing British battleships two areas, later I really needed to because my fast battleships were sunk. Only 1 of about 8 attempts succeeded. Which was a horrible result.

The only good thing was British ASW. 

I had planned on making a foray into the Mediterranean Sea but British losses were too heavy and British air strikes never whittled down the Italian fleet.

And ouch, the German shooting advantage is scary for undamaged German warships.

On the last turn the Axis cleaned up and won the game by 2--which I forgot to adjust before taking the picture.

It took me about 2-1/2 hours to set up, refresh my memory on the rules, and play the game. Which is three times as much time as we needed in high school. 

But it was fun. I'm glad I forced myself to play.

And for anyone used to playing Catan who wants to try an actual war game this is a nice and easy entry game to try.

I'll do it again next week, with the 6-pack I have saved for the beer exchange part.