Game Night Light 31

I hauled out an old game, Afrika Korps, by Avalon Hill. Somehow I have the third edition rules. Who knew?

The Germans did well, inflicting casualties on the British at little cost. And finally taking Tobruk fairly quickly. My memory was that was more difficult. I guess I didn't deploy my British units properly. Although the Germans never rolled even an exchange in the attacks to pay a price. That hurt.

But the Germans were unable to push beyond Sidi Barrani as losses finally kicked in and British forces threatened encirclement on the south side of the escarpment while German supplies had to evade British deep raiders.

The Germans pulled back to hold Tobruk but had to pull back even farther. It was seemingly impossible to concentrate enough forces for a solid counter-attack without exposing flanks. The Italians were left to hold Tobruk, hoping to hang on to keep added German replacements coming in. The British managed to take the port rather quickly, too.

Instead of making a stand at that point the Germans pulled back to Agedabia. The British followed, finally built up larger formations with reinforcements and replacements, and pounded at the German line.

The game ended here:

I thought it was a draw until I read the victory conditions again and saw that the British win if they keep the Germans from winning. Oops.

I really should have tried to have the Germans take risks rather than pull back to Tobruk.

The game is still fun. The game is more fun for the German player. The British have to really play a different game with its weaker units delaying the Germans and using up their supplies; while avoiding encirclement or supplying the Germans with captured supply units.

Game Night Light 30

We had a weekly beer exchange and game night yesterday. We played The Shores of Tripoli.

You can see this older post for more information and the starting map when I played it solitaire.

Let's start with the beer exchange.

It took us a couple hours to play. You could go faster with experience. I especially recommend being fully familiar with all the cards that provide you with all your abilities to act. Holding the right cards at the right moment are crucial. And understanding what your enemy can do is important.

We jumped in with no real awareness of the victory conditions. Based on knowledge of the last blog post on this game, the American player at least knew that taking Derne as early as possible is important in either chain to victory.

One disastrous Tripolitan foray through the blockade line at Tripoli devastated the Tripolitan privateer fleet. That was key to ruling out an early victory by getting piracy gold.

The Americans lost a frigate on blockade duty--sunk and luckily not captured. And the Tripolitans bribed the Swedes to send their frigates home, so America lost the use of two more frigates.

But America took Derne. And after driving two of Tripoli's North African allies neutral, was able to play the card that allowed America to gain an acceptable peace treaty. Had Tripoli captured that frigate instead of sinking it, America would have had to destroy the frigate to get the treaty.

I still don't have a feel for the game balance. It is a card-driven game so a lot depends on the cards you get in the first 5 years. Although knowledge of the cards and victory conditions can shape what you keep in your hand to save for later. Or discard knowing you can get it again late in the game.

Also, keep in mind that you should try to make a play for victory within the calendar year. New cards in your enemy's hands at the start of the year could thwart your plan if you start at the end of a year and try to finish it the next year. Although shaping the battlefield late in the prior year is useful.

And luck is big. Hot American die rolls smashed the Tripolitan raiding fleet in one piracy foray. Although poor American rolling in the Derne ground battle early did not change the result after enough rounds of combat.

Anyway, a fun game. Simple with interesting options each turn. And certainly a a high quality game in looks.

Game Night Light 29

I hauled out a small game I've had for a long time that looked like it had promise. Strange Defeat about the German invasion of France in 1940.

Mostly it is a corps-level game with some divisions and even battalions, with step losses and a roll-to-hit combat system rather than odds chart.

There was a map printing error. But thank God I had set-up errata in the box. The game set-up even survived a cat intrusion overnight without too much damage. Thankfully I had the above photo to restore the armies.

Just seven turns long, this seemed pretty interesting. The map is way too big, in my opinion. It could lose the sections on the right and put the information in sea hexes or the southeast part of the map. If fighting is taking place there by week 7, there is no doubt who is winning.

I jumped in and started playing the German turn. Hmm. Using the two German paratrooper battalions requires a die roll for each. They can die, lose a step, or land just fine. The battalions have no step losses. So essentially they are almost sure to die. Both did.

Oh well! I began moving, and the ability to somewhat nullify zones of control was neat. I pushed west and with good luck knocked out 4 Allied corps and reduced one. Exploitation was nice but I could see how the Allies could exploit that if the Germans are reckless.

But then I realized I'd forgotten about air power. Darn! That would have opened up more attack options had I used them. Well I'll use them on turn two, I thought. How do I get them? The rules say the turn record track indicates German and Allied air power points.

The turn record track does not, in fact, indicate home many air points each side gets. Hmm.

Ten minutes of searching online did not get me any errata on that issue. Or the paratrooper issue, for that matter.

The only hint was a search screen result about a game replay that noted the Allies got two air points on some unspecified turn which the Allies used to counter-attack. What turn? Don't know.

And the game manufacturer site did not match the search screen fragment. And seemed kind of sketchy in a "please don't give me a computer virus" sort of way.

So it all went back in the box. At some point I should make up my own air power track numbers and deal with the paratrooper issue. Because hey, I at least have the set-up errata. Which is nice.

I'm thankful I didn't haul this out for guests. And this really should have been a drinking evening to make it worth my time.

It was a strange gaming defeat, for sure.

UPDATE: Hey! I finally found image of a more up-to-date errata than came with my game (https://boardgamegeek.com/image/160006/strange-defeat-fall-france-1940). And it includes air point chart!

I will try this again sometime. It's nice not to have a worthless game. I was thinking of making my own air points chart based on my France 1940 game air allocation.

Game Night Light 28

This is a non-specific game "night" report that was done over multiple days instead of the fixed (now-Thursday) weekly beer exchange and game night.

I decided to address the concern that Mega Catan might take too long to play. You know:

So I made new rules for Mega Catan rules that I already wrote. Some are now optional for smaller games. These additional rules are at the end of the rules.

These are the new pieces I added (not including the circular resource value chits in the bad with other parts):

Other pieces are added from the second game I purchased for parts.

MEGA CATAN

Mega Catan board 

I made two extra small pieces for the border--one 3:1 port and one blank. So there will be alternating port and blank extensions. This makes Catan 4 hexes on each side, totaling 37 hexes. 

Place a 3:1 small border piece between section 1 links; a blank piece between section 2 links; a 2:1 sheep piece between the 3 links; a blank piece between the 4 links; a 3:1 piece between section 5 links; and a blank piece between section 6 links. 

Mega Catan circular resource distribution chits 

I added 7 new circular chits marked Zd throuh Zj. Because the expansion pack adds 10 chits with a total point value of 31, I made the 7 new chits equal 22 points. But I arbitrarily assigned them numbers. From Zd as a 12, with subsequent chits 5, 3, 6, 2, 9, and 8. 

Mega Catan buildings and roads 

One day I may spray paint the buildings and roads, but for now the extra sets have roofs painted black; and the ends of the road segments painted black. 

The Trade and Build Phase 

For any Mega Catan game of 7-10 players I modified the revised special building phase for 5-6 players that now has a Trade and Build Phase with a Settler1 phase and a Settler 2--who is three players to the left of Settler 1--special building phase. 

The Mega Catan Trade and Build Phase will have a Settler 1 and a Settler 2 who is four players to the left of Settler 1. 

In addition, your hand is safe from the robber with 9 cards instead of 7. So the robber takes half (rounded down) when you have 10 cards in your hand instead of the 8 in other games. 

Victory points 

For victory point levels I looked at the maximum theoretical points per player, using 13 points for building per player, plus 5 victory point cards and 6 points with the harbor master, largest army, and longest road bonuses. This ran from an average of 16.75 points per player with 3 players to 14.8 points per player at 6 players. I set a rounded 15 as the threshold for 10 victory points for a regular game and 11 victory points for harbor master variant. 

Calculating theoretical points per player from 7 to 10 players, I was looking at 14.6, 14.4, 14.2, and 14 points. So I established the victory points needed for victory at 10 and 11 for 3-7 players; and 9 and 10 points for 8-10 players. 

I hold open the option of going to 8 and 9 points for 10 players because I did not factor in players to space. 

Additional pieces 

Playing Mega Catan requires the basic game, plus the expansion kit pieces, plus the following additions:

One small blank frame and one small 3:1 harbor frame (which I had to make using my copier and cardboard). 

Two new Robber’s Desert Lair hexes for use in all Mega Catan games. Replace original desert pieces with these after hexes are flipped and revealed. 

One 3:1 harbor piece.

Six knights, and one each of year of plenty, monopoly, road building, and victory point cards. 

Six each of bricks, rocks, sheep, wheat, and wood. 

Seven circular resource value chits Zd (12), Ze (5), Zf (3), Zg (6), Zh (2), Zi (9), and Zj (8). 

Four sets of building pieces and building cost cards. 

One Robber Baron variant card. 

One Longest Road variant card.

Additional rules 

Longest Road Bonus. Anybody who holds the longest road card is considered to have a 3:1 “port” for trading purposes only. This does not count toward Harbor Master. This rule is mandatory in Mega Catan and optional in smaller games. 

Robber’s Desert Lair. Whenever a 7 is rolled, after the effects of the robber and placement/resource card taking of the robber segment is completed, each player who has at least one settlement (or city) on a desert hex—beginning with Player 1—may choose one resource card for their hand, if they choose to. This is one total and not one per settlement or one per desert hex. This rule is mandatory in Mega Catan and optional in 5-6-player Catan. 

Robber Baron Variant. The first player to play 3 economy cards (road building, monopoly, and year of plenty) gets the RB card. Another player who plays more economy cards takes this card. It is worth 2 victory points. This variant does not increase the number of points needed to win. It is required in a 9-10 player Mega Catan game and is optional in a 7-8 player game. 

/END RULES/

Hopefully the additional rules help move a larger game along by correcting the more inland nature of Mega Catan, prevent too many players from being locked out of having available victory points to win, and prevent the robber from slowing down the game too much.

Game Night Light 27

This last Monday saw the return of weekly game night after a Covid pause.

We played my newly acquired game Sniper!

I haven't played this since high school in the original weekly game night.

The beer exchange resumed as well, naturally:

Both were good, but I honestly couldn't tell the difference between the golden lager and the regular one.

The game was fun, although we played the stripped down basic version of the game. Just firearms. Each side had a squad moving through the town on predetermined patrol paths until each side spotted the other. The German squad had one fewer man but three machine guns and four rifles. The Americans had more automatic rifles and machine pistols, but no machine gun.

The game operates on written orders and simultaneous movement. Thank goodness I have a personal photocopier/printer! Although 40+ years ago I bet we used plain ruled paper.

We each operated under misconceptions that affected our play. 

One, contrary to expectations, being in buildings and shooting out of windows or through doors provided no more protection than lying prone in the open. Of course, it takes a full turn to drop prone or stand up, so the aperture position was more flexible.

Two, we thought elevation mattered. Not in the basic game, really.

Three, the map actually represents a very small area. Even machine pistols could shoot across the entire board. We each assumed such weapons would be close range only. Oops. I still think even on the game scale that the machine pistols were over-rated. It just feels like they should be awesome indoors but less valuable for long-range. But no.

The German player figured getting machine guns in buildings with good fields of fire would be supreme. But the short range made a machine gunner shooting at a machine pistol equally lethal both ways. Maybe if the Germans had been able to keep the MGs well back the "longer" range would have made a difference. One would hope so given the hopeless nature of a mere rifle-armed soldier.

The American player wasted time trying to get soldiers up stairs to higher floors or roofs. And the higher chance of American troops panicking and just running about made it tougher for the Americans to really organize a push.

Both players spread out too much given the near impossibility of troops without body armor surviving any firefight.

And I do think the shooting was way too accurate. 

We wrapped up at 10:00 after just 4 turns of writing orders for shooting and moving in contact.

In the end, the Germans lost a machine gunner and rifleman (shot dead while trying to crawl to safety after being incapacitated!) while the Americans lost three machine pistol/automatic rifle troops.

 

It was easy to get into the basic game without the learning curve struggles of other games. But the full game with smoke, grenades, opportunity fire, and move and shoot rather than one or the other--not to mention the ability to go through windows and not just doors--would make it more interesting.

A worthy game that can easily be used for multiple players controlling just a fire team of 3-5 men. 

Oh, and I'm switching weekly beer exchange and game night to Thursday going forward. So the next warning email will be later in the week. I'm not even sure why I picked Monday. Thursday makes much more sense.

Game Night Light 26

Last night was the weekly game night and beer exchange.

First, the beers:

The game was Through the Ages. We played the simple game.

That's the main board above with all the cards you draw for different capabilities you can use; and markers for points in science, culture, and military power. Each player has their own board to keep track of people and production. In many ways this is a simpler version of the Castles of Burgundy game. And it reminds me of Scythe in some ways, although that impression is not based on playing the latter.

The game can be played by 2-4 players. You build your empire with technology, culture, military power, growing your population, and building up your government, agriculture, mining, and wonders of the world. At the end of the game you convert your assets to culture points and the player with the most culture points wins.

There is an events deck, which in the simple game just provides good things.

You have action points for civilian and military actions that can elevate your civilization. Your type of government can affect those points.

We didn't jump right into the game. And the learning curve was actually pretty rapid. We didn't know how you win until we got to the end of the game. And as we added up the points, we .... tied!

So that was interesting. We each had different means of getting to the same number of points. You do have to balance your limited actions to do a lot of different things. I for example, tied up resources making the Great Wall. Luckily I had a card that helped build it faster, freeing up resources more quickly.

Anyway, we both liked the game. I think we played this in a maybe 2-1/2 hours. It would be fun to try 3 or 4 players.

Game Night Light 25

Monday was the weekly game night.

First, the beer exchange!

The game was Viktory II, which some may remember from pre-Catan days. It has a Catan-like map with resources that provide for infantry, cavalry, cannons, and frigates as the basic weapons. The first three can attack and defend; the latter two can bombard from an adjacent hex.

Towns, cities, forests, and mountains provide defensive fire bonuses. Firing is simultaneous. You hit on a roll of 1-3. Rolling a 1 allows the firing side to choose the enemy unit that dies. The defender chooses if hit on a 2-3.

Cities in forests allow frigates. Mountains allow cannons. Green pastures allow cavalry. Plains allow additional infantry. All terrain allows infantry. Other than water, naturally.

Infantry and cannon move two, cavalry three, and frigates five. Frigates can carry three ground units.

Roads exist between controlled towns or cities. And friendly units negate movement restrictions through bad terrain. Settlements must be two from a friendly city and no more than 3 from a friendly settlement.

It can handle 8 players.

Back in the day we never played a two-player game on the smallest map. It is good to learn mechanics but the interplay of multiple factions is really needed. In a two player game, gaining the edge can be decisive. In a multiple player game, losses can be reversed through diplomacy or opportunism that expands the war.

Or it can finish you off if others join in your destruction, of course.

Yellow on the north edge faced off against Blue from the south. You don't see territory until you move next to it.

This was the end of the game, prior to blue reinforcement phase.

The initial territory after reach staked out all build sites had that Yellow city on brown in the southwest a Blue town; while the Blue cities in the forests at the top and two hexes below it were Yellow.

Yellow took advantage of its initial non-infantry units to bombard the southwest Blue city and capture it. It looked like Blue was hosed.

Blue had infantry in the Yellow forest city close to the center and hit it with every unit in range. That attack worked. Taking the city removed a Yellow infantry and frigate from the force pool and added the same to Blue. Blue could now mass a superior fleet in the southwest to bombard the yellow city to help protect the southern Blue city.

Blue forces massed in the captured center city pushed infantry into the mountains overlooking the capital to put both Yellow cities in danger. Then struck the northern city. Both sides inflicted heavy losses but Blue forces prevailed. At that point, with Blue getting total naval superiority and numerical superiority, Yellow conceded.

It took about two hours to play the game. But as noted, a two-player game doesn't have the interplay of multiple players that made the game fun.

But it does offer opportunities for "Your bastard" reactions.

Game Night Light 24

Monday was a solitary game night. I pondered working on miniatures. But instead I hauled out an old game, Waterloo!

I've had this game since high school. Lost it somehow. And bought another long ago.

Identifying the small print of unit commanders for the French and Prussian-Anglo-Allied armies plus the PAA reinforcements was a challenge to my aging eyes. I passed. But Lord. 

I mostly remembered the strategies. I made a basic strategy error on the PAA side by giving up ground too early. 

As the French my left flank attack did no more than force the PAA to divert troops there. 

In the center the French reached Quatre Bras fairly quickly and the French had a pretty good kill ratio. By then the British were trading space for time a bit better. The French did not achieve a breakthrough before the British reached their final main line of resistance south of Mont. St. Jean. The British had to do or die, risking death if forced to retreat through forests.

The French right flank attack had promise and forced the PAA to divert forces there. Napoleon was close to exiting troops off the north to induce defections. But no cigar. Then the Prussians arrived.

This was the end game after the PAA turn and a successful counter-attack. As the British I judged a risk exposing a couple divisions to a flanking attack was worth it given how much the French would have to thin their lines to take advantage. I decided France had no shot at winning:

At this point, the British had been able to slug it out at the main line of resistance at the left end--away from the final Prussian corps--for several turns without breaking. And the late-arriving Prussian corps was finally moving into the main battle area after ending the French right flank threat.

So I built a fire and sang a couple songs. Which was nice.

It was certainly fun to play this old game. Oh, and after it was too late I noticed that I had helpfully written starting placements on the backs of the counters as well as the order of reinforcements.

Well, I'll have another weekly game night this coming week.

Game Night Light 23

The weekly game night and beer exchange was achieved last night! I'll admit that they haven't been as regular as I'd hoped. Winter is getting to me early this year.

First, the beer:

And the game, Wooden Ships and Iron Men:

I haven't unpacked the box in decades. Evidence of heavy use with lots of partially used data sheet and extra ship lists, plus half a dozen sharpened pencils(!).  It included my squadron sheet of HBS Hurley, Ryan, Buffy, and Xena. So I guess the 1990s rather than college was the last usage.

We had a meeting at sea between British and French squadrons totaling 80 points of ship.

On the one side was a French squadron of a large ship of the line, two large frigates, and one small frigate.

On the other was the British squadron with one large ship of the line, one medium ship of the line, and one small frigate.

The French approached with two columns with frigates leading. The British were in line ahead with the smaller SOL leading and the frigate trailing.

One French large frigate took the blunt of two British SOL fire. But the British squadron got stuck downwind with trouble maneuvering. 

When the lead French frigate struck its colors to keep the holed hull afloat, it provided a shield to get the large British SOL that had somehow maneuvered ahead to slowly heave around, shielded from rakes by the British frigate. The French squadron split by the wrecked frigate were delayed in regrouping.

While that took place, the large French SOL engaged the medium British SOL while both sides attempted to reinforce. While the British gunners killed lots of fish, their better crew quality kept the exchange pretty even. The British had to turn to avoid getting raked by the French ship. But the French ship was forced to turn into the wind to keep shooting.

The British large SOL finally caught up with the other British SOL, which had lost a mast by then. The British reinforcement ended up adjacent to one of the French large frigates racing in, and the first broadside exchange was brutal for the French frigate. In two or three turns the British would have two SOLs against the single French SOL. But the end of the evening arrived and the battle ended.

Amazingly, the basic rules came back to us pretty quickly. Although memories of some of the advanced rules had to be suppressed.

Truly, this would be a good multiplayer game as we discovered in college. And much easier than Star Fleet Battles!

Another fun game night with a game rescued from my shelves. And new beers.

Game Night Light 22

Monday was the weekly game night and beer exchange. It might be called Game Night Light 21 Part II.

We returned to Star Fleet Battles after incorporating the training wheel version.

The beer was fine, as usual.

We used the online Cadet version. Basically the scenario 5-7 variant, but used the regular game impulse chart given that the concept is well understood. And we kept the shield reinforcing rules because we figured that out in the initial game night.

This time we got into a rhythm pretty quickly. Although we both settled on the basic "scream and leap" strategy of charging straight at each other.

In the vastness of space, this is when we called the battle for the Klingons.

The Federation ship was stripped of weaponry and on the cusp of having its structural integrity shattered, with just one warp engine fully online. 

Just before that, we'd been stacked in the same hex. Which required a scramble to figure out what shield is used when we fire at each other. That required going to the main rules for clarification.

At best, with the Federation ship at a much higher speed than the Klingon at the time, the Klingon would have been put into a stern chase with long-range sniping. It would have taken time, but unless the Federation ship could retreat to a Star Base or another ship, it would have lost.

And there were no transporters to send the Tribbles into the Klingon engine room.

I suspect that the better strategy for the Federation is to try to snipe at long range with the slow-reloading photon torpedoes until the Klingon ship's shields are weakened enough to finish off with a major volley. Otherwise the Klingons seem to have an edge in a close-fought furball.

It was a lot of fun to figure out the basic mechanics, which provides a basis for expanding the systems put into play for the full game.

And one more game on my shelves is no longer a hangar queen!

We wrapped up before 10:00, as scheduled. Maybe Wooden Ships and Iron Men next time?

Game Night Light 21

Monday was the return of game night. Which promptly stumbled on the speed bump of rules that resemble the operating manual of a SpaceX ship than game rules.

This was the game:

The basic set! As I understand it, there are many expansions that I swear provide a negative modifier on certain die rolls if a warp drive technician third class has a hangover, a hang nail, or recently broke up with his girl friend.

I have fond memories of the game Star Fleet Battles from college. A friend had it and he easily taught it to us. But it seems to have gotten ultra-complicated in an effort to satisfy the cadre of players who believe they are simulating space combat.

I bought the game many years ago, thinking it would be a great multi-player game.

We started plugging along with a one-on-one duel, planning to use just basic rules. But we foundered on the complexity of the rules that did not easily show where the simple game stopped and the field manual began.

Jesus, people. We don't need to know how to field strip a Klingon D-7 starship.

How we didn't drink all of the beer is beyond me:

After two hours as we were just beginning to start the first turn, we gave up. For now.

I had downloaded a basic simplified version of the rules some time ago and figured I'd print it out.

I found the simple rules. At 52 pages. Fifty-two! I emailed them to the Klingon and myself and, after finally fixing the sudden lack of email on my Amazon Fire tablet that would not recognize my valid password, finally added a new mail app and opened the PDF of the rules on the tablet. 

So now I will read those and hopefully they will be a better way back into the fun that the game once was.

I swear to God I'm not going to study as if my MOS is United States Space Force Starship Commander.

Game Night Light 20

Monday was the weekly beer exchange and game night.

The game of choice is one some of us remember from a previous company in a different graphical format. If you played in Pat's World War II campaign game (well, really a complicated system to generate naval and air battles) way back in the day, you played Air Force.

And the beer exchange:

We played a simple two fighter versus two fighter sweep. Early model Me-109s and Spitfires.

Just the basic rules to keep it simple. But the concepts and rules came back fairly quickly. 

And the game is certainly much better than the Richthofen's War played earlier.

There are a couple rules on half-loops and disadvantaged aircraft that we need to clarify. But the way we played them made sense in the latter case and in the former both of us fulfilled what we think is the prerequisite unintentionally. But we wonder if it is required.

The game does take a while. We did not finish with a winner before the game night time limit. But it is fun and we moved along pretty quickly as the night went on.

I really like these weekly game nights for hauling out little-used games or new games. 

And it is good to exercise brain paths long-unused but heavily used when I was in high school--reading rules and using them to play sometimes complicated games. Playing simpler games or even computer-driven games has left that skill atrophied to some extent. Heck, we experienced that playing Catan online and had to remember basic rules again (sorry, Tony, that victory point card issue hurt to see ...).

Anyway, a fun evening of new beers and an unfamiliar game revived from the dead.

Game Night Light 19

Last night was the weekly beer exchange and game night. I was pleasantly surprised that post-Thanksgiving torpor didn't scuttle this week's event.

We returned to an old game from the early days of the monthly game night. Napoleon:

We did indeed manage to finish the game in one evening. Back in the day this was a good 2 or 3 player game that we played a lot before moving on to Viktory II and then Catan. I bought several more of these block war games in case we needed new ones for variety. But new players and a preference for strategy games pushed those games aside.

But that's one reason why weekly game night was born!

The game came back to me as the evening progressed. 

The difficulty of moving masses of troops with limited movement from command and road network limits was a challenge. 

Getting the British and Prussians within supporting distance was hard and not always fully successful. Defending allied supply bases was a constraint. 

And pushing the masses of French troops into position to exploit the allied centrifugal forces was hard. 

Preserving your armies in battle was also a challenge and the occasional night turns were both problems and opportunities. 

And the hidden nature of the enemy always added tension as the assumption of a strong enemy force near you was always made.

The tactical battle map is interesting and we only screwed up once in the first smaller battle--neglecting that artillery can't advance to engage. But the error didn't change the results of the first fight.

One thing neither of us did was form square in battle. I always preferred to keep shooting rather than losing a battle move going into square and then another returning to regular formation.

We only had three major battles in the game. The first was on the knife's edge and could have gone either way. The second was at Waterloo. And the third was the result of a massive surge south as both sides marched to fight for the Prussian supply base. The outcome was on the knife's edge as both raced into position for a final battle near the end of the game's time limit.

It really is a nice game, balancing the tensions of maneuvering on the map and the terror of committing to battle against an unknown foe on the battle map, with your artillery, cavalry, and infantry mix.

Anyway, it was fun to trade and drink beers, and play a war game. Weekly game night forces me to resist the winter urge to just hybernate and wait to emerge in spring to socialize. Or even to use my brain for doing more than browsing my streaming services. 

So thanks for attending!

Game Night Light 18

Monday was the weekly game night.

First, the beer exchange:

Ah. Want beer.

 And the game:

This is an old game called "Fox One" on air-to-air combat. The F-15C is the most modern aircraft in the game. It goes back to first generation Korean War era planes. Only two cards of each fighter are available. Although it would be pretty easy to photocopy plane cards on card stock. The reverse side isn't important. The same goes for missile cards.

There is at least a ground attack expansion (which I don't have). I've never played it. It requires a 10-sided die, which I had. Pennies or some other marker are needed.

We played one F-16 versus one Mig-29. Each side adds missiles and then draws six action cards. These cards affect you or your opponent, can enhance your attacks, or evade enemy attacks. 

You maneuver forward on the range track with the environment revealed as you move over it. Clear skies are the usual. But there are clouds and cluttered ground that can affect combat. And you can turn around.

It was pretty easy to play. And it can be fought with teams. Although with more people it gets less realistic unless you are a huge fan of Lanchester Square Theory of combat. 

Still, we liked the game and it is a fine candidate for group play.

We could have played another game but instead kept drinking beer and watched Xena: Warrior Princess.

Game Night Light 17

Last night was the weekly game night. Last week fell through with an unexpected non-game night, shoot-the-shit visit.

Three of us gathered to take a 2-hour SAT math word problem test and then played Car Wars for a bit over 2 hours. I even got the new-dice smell by breaking the seal on the bag of dice in the pristine, never touched game components.

But first, the beer exchange submissions:

Well played, gentlemen.

And this is what the game looked like as we started out on 4 laps of death and destruction.

That's also where we finished, with some rough respect for the ending time of weekly game night.

We only played two or three turns of 5 phases each. The game rules are fairly extensive, not well written, or organized. But we decided to try anyway because we have memories of playing the game in college. And basic physics knowledge helped us figure out what some opaque rules and charts must mean.

The first obstacle was figuring out how to design the cars. With scrap paper we each toiled away with a subcompact and its weight and space limits along with a $3,500 budget to outfit the vehicle with the means to survive each other.

We all passed.

Then we played the game for a bit. As we played we figured out the rules. And many of the daunting list of maneuvers were clearly unneeded by our primitive vehicles. My capacity was almost limited to gentle turns, acceleration, and braking; and an occasional full drift, I think.

Otherwise I'd flip, roll, and burn.

We got to see how dropped spikes, machine gun fire, and armor worked.

And we recalled that our friend Pat owned this game and was the referee back in the day. Which explained our failure to remember the complexity.

We are saving the positions and cars we made to continue the game at a future game night.

Of course, this morning, I wondered why this old game wasn't partly online. I spent 5 seconds on a search and found this site.

Oh good grief.

Well next time we do this from scratch, everyone playing will be expected to design their car with chassis and money limits we all agree on before arriving to play.

But we agreed it was much fun and a great game to revive.

Game Night Light 16

Despite my vow to stop buying games that I put on a shelf, never to be played, I did buy one game on a topic long of interest to me.

But other than that game, I've held my ground on new games. In theory it can be played in 90 minutes. I played it solitaire--but not using solitaire rules--in two hours.

It's a two-player game, of course. This is the starting map.

The military units are frigates, gunboats/pirates, and armies. There are American, Tripolitan, North African, Arab mercenary, and Swedish units. The game is driven by cards that allow moves or builds, special moves or events, or combat capabilities. You draw 6 at the start along with three base cards. Each year you draw 6 more. You can keep 8 drawn cards in your hand. In the second-to-last year (I think) you reshuffle the discard pile. In the last year you get to choose your cards from the pile.

Tripoli wins by getting all the gold from piracy or sinking 4 American frigates.

America wins by taking Tripoli or forcing a peace on an isolated (from allies) Tripoli.

The limited moves per season make it difficult to prioritize and do everything you want to do.

I failed to pirate raid as much as I should have for Tripoli. I used a good defense of Tripoli card way too early. It can be used just once per game. And I should have beefed up Tripoli's defenses more.

And I probably should have built American gunboats sooner. 

But at least I took the steps as the Americans to get the Marines going on the "shores of Tripoli" thing and took cards in the last year to assault Tripoli.

So in the end, the Americans won.

Tripoli managed to sink two frigates. In the end I hit Tripoli with Marines and Arab mercenaries along with my entire fleet. I lost a frigate and both gunboats in addition to several mercenaries. But I defeated the Tripoli fleet, bombarded the port, and then won the land battle.

I might have been a little lucky in the battles although I think I had the edge in the naval and land combat.

It's a neat little game that is quite simple to play. The Tripoli victory conditions are pretty straightforward but the American victory conditions are kind of complicated. And some of the cards are potentially devastating. Luck can swing this game, it seems to me.

Anyway, it was fun to try the game out.

Game Night Light 15

I had a solitaire game night on Monday. Which I expect after monthly game night excesses.

I hauled out an old game called MBT. The drink is something to use up my dry vermouth which is equal part gin and vermouth with a bit of lemon juice and raspberry syrup. It is perfectly adequate.

Sorry. I don't know how to rotate the image in Blogger. A quick search indicates it isn't really possible without added photo-editing additions. And that information was old. I could do it in photo editor separately but it isn't worth it to me. [Doh! I remembered I rotate it in my camera before sending it for blogging.]

I picked the basic scenario of 3 Abrams versus 4 T-72s. I ground through several turns until it was clear that the Soviets were doomed.

I sent 3 Soviet tanks to the south to try to bull through a smaller number of Americans while a single tank kept a single American tank busy.

 

The game is basically a miniatures game with tremendous detail possible. Check for spotting. Issue orders. Fire and move. Check hit number and roll for shot. Check penetration versus armor protection and roll for damage. Lots of charts must be consulted for all these things.

My Soviet move led to the stationary American tanks on the hill shots at two of the Soviet tanks. Hit chances were 60% or more and both shots hit.

One target blew up.

The problem is that the scenario doesn't have an objective other than learning the game. So I parked my American tanks into positions and waited. And as the Soviet player I simply accepted the attacker role despite parity. 

Without hidden movement, you know where the enemy is. This is pre-drone era, remember (well,technically there were some, and Israel pioneered combat usage before this game era). I could have maneuvered around with the God-like view but pretended the Soviets had to move fast.

Also, I discovered two apparent typos in the few rules I used. Gaming experience let me see the obvious errors.

The basic rules aren't that bad despite the multiple steps. You'd get used to them with practice. But I have miniatures. And I want easier and more playable rules for those. In younger days I would have loved this game. Pity I didn't play it when I was younger.

Now? When I finally reach the point of selling my games before I have to leave them to my children who will sell them for pennies on the dollar at an estate sale, this will be an early sale.

Unless I strip the game for its vehicle cards and use them with simplified rules for my modern miniatures. Hmm. That has some potential.

Stay of future game disposal is on hold.

Anyway, it was fun to play. But I truncated game night before 8:00 and called it a night. Monthly game night tires me out, too!

Game Night Light 14

Monday was weekly game night and beer exchange.

First, the beer exchange beers were a fine selection:

And the exchange, properly "Daved" for uniformity:

As is practice, we had chips, dip, assorted sweets, and non-alcoholic beverages available, too.

It is perhaps a good sign that the cat wasn't chased off of her cube, where she slept most of the evening.

We played the same game as last week, this time with three players. The maximum is four.

We discovered a few rules we did wrong the first time plus gained understanding of some rules that made no sense. For example, understanding that a contiguous group of hexes on your estate of the same color are a "city" made something else make sense.

Also, while there some grumblings over other player actions, the expletives were more rote like late series, "They killed Kenny. You bastards." It was hard to work up real annoyance.

The biggest thing we carried into this game from last week was an understanding of our "known unknowns." We spent more time looking up knowledge tiles and building types. Which are important for your overall strategy for getting points.

We got pretty good on the mechanics of the rounds and phases, but referring to rules added time. In theory the game can be played in 90 minutes. It took us about 4 hours.

Here's a snapshot of the game as it was being played, at the beginning of the fourth phase:

Again, the larger center mat is the administrative and resource mat. 

Each player uses a smaller estate map to build their cities and hold resources--trade goods, workers, money (silverlings). And when you use your dice to carry out one of your minimum two actions you place them, in turn, on your dice holding area on the estate map. Additional moves are possible depending on your money or building, castle, or ship tiles placed on your estate.

There were some rumblings that perhaps I should have put the table center leaf in. Lesson learned.

We stayed over the 10:00 time limit to finish the game since we were so close.  It can be sped up with knowledge of the special abilities of the knowledge and building types. So in that spirit, here are the online rules to print or put on your phone.

The game isn't really a replacement for regular game night unless everyone gets good at it. One game per night would be the limit. Although we'd have time for other shorter games or Game of Thrones.

And it is limited to four players. But it is fun and worth playing. It could be an alternative to Catan if just three or four show and there is consensus for it, in my opinion. Or it is a candidate for future weekly game nights or even off the books extra game nights if we do that. Hey, I'm a Gentlemen of Leisure with a (mostly) empty nest now.

Just don't tell Klaus.

It was nice to have a chance to actually play the game instead of it sitting on a shelf! Thanks for attending.

Next week I'm going to aim for Car Wars if it isn't a solitaire evening. That's a blast from the past for some of us.

Game Night Light 13

Monday was the weekly game night.

The beer exchange involved:

Both were tasty, although I was a lightweight drinking just one of each.

This week we tried out The Castles of Burgundy. I had to punch out the counters. This was a game I bought in search of a regular game night candidate before Catan got entrenched. "Hail Klaus".

Each player has their own unique board for tracking and building their own resources. Plus a main board for tracking victory points, turn order, and resources that players compete for. There are castles (which you can place on dark green hexes), buildings (brown), farms (light green), knowledge (yellow), and ships (blue) available for placing on your map. Plus resources like trade goods, money, and workers. For the most part, you can take two actions per round and there are 25 rounds in 5 phases. Center board resources are reset every phase. And with more players there are more center board resources.

The game is for 2-4 players. It is a much more complex version of  Catan in some ways, and might be considered a form of SimCity. You win through 25 rounds of play by getting the most points. There are different ways to get victory points including trade, buildings, expanding your kingdom's contiguous footprint, trade, agriculture, and probably other things we didn't notice. Note that the trade is not with other players.

The game was frustrating at first because the rules were kind of fragmented despite being brief. So it was slow going resolving questions. We both started worrying about the suitability of the game and whether it can really be played in 90 minutes. We started wishing we'd watched a tutorial video first.

But we resolved problems and before the first phase was over we were moving faster. And in the second phase it moved at a rapid clip. We ended the game at 10:04 after the second phase.

We used different strategies to get points and it seemed pretty balanced. Although you really need to know the rules to play effectively in using the different means of getting points most effectively. We did not have that detailed understanding. But we did have the mechanics down pretty well.

Although there aren't the opportunities to shout "You bastard!" that Catan so often provides.

All in all, this would be a fun game for a higher participant game night.

Once again, a successful weekly game night!

Game Night Light 12

I had the weekly game night and beer exchange yesterday, continued into today. Game night involved preparing to finally complete my decades-old plan to make the board game Caesar, about the Battle of Alesia, into a 3-D game.

The immediate project was to paint the four groups of Heroics and Ros miniatures I ordered years ago from Britain: Roman regulars, Roman recruits and auxiliaries, interior Gaul forces, and exterior Gaul forces.

In the waning days of summer, I hauled out my last shandy for the drinking part. 

On the prior weekly game night I sorted the miniatures after calculating what I would need to replace the game counters. 

This week, with tacky yellow stuff I mounted the figures on paper in order to put them on the cardboard for spray painting dark green, light green, red, and pink. I spray painted outside, of course.

This was the result of part of the mounting effort, showing the largest contingent of the exterior Gauls ready for painting:

The next day in daylight, I spray painted them:

My plan is this winter I will mount the miniatures on the counter replacement stands I made and printed on cardboard stock, complete the 3D terrain, and build the Roman fortification lines. Hopefully I have enough balsa wood for the latter. And if I don't, fingers crossed that I have a working car again by then!

Once completed, it will be a board game using miniatures for the pieces which won't change the game but will hopefully make the game more tense with more of a feel of miniatures. 

Next week will involve playing a game even if it is a solo game night. Note that this game could never be a weekly game night candidate because it takes too darned long to play.