Good morning!
First off, Happy Canada Day to all! It's unpleasantly rainy here today, which means most festivities may end up being postponed - hopefully you're having more summery weather!
Quick post today, mainly centered around a question I have. I acquired a copy of the old board game NATO : The Next War in Europe relatively recently, and have been really looking forward to playing it. The concept, a strategic-scale wargame of the first days of a Warsaw Pact offensive into Western Europe, with rules for nuclear and chemical warfare, really appeals to me. The counters are nice, with good NATO symbology, and the rules, while long, are comprehensive, and it seems to me like they would be fairly intuitive to learn if I could just start the game.
That's the thing, though. I haven't managed to start the game yet, because sorting through the hundreds of counters to just start the game is so time-consuming and, frankly, daunting. I get most of the way through the US forces about a half-hour in, look at the remaining NATO piles and the tower of WP markers, sigh, and pack it up because I need to do something else.
Now, I don't expect a strategic game like that to be a pick-up and play title, over in an hour, but I'd appreciate any tips anyone has on organizing the game materials or something, so that I can get the game started in a reasonable time and set it back up later if I need to take a break because I have a life.
The box comes with a cute plastic rack, but besides the cover needing to be weighed down at all times to prevent counters fleeing their assigned spots, there aren't enough spots to subdivide the counters in any useful way. You can split each country off (with 3 spots for WP forces), and put all the game counters in the two remaining spots, but you still have to sift through multiple handfuls of counters to find the right ones for setting up each nation. I've considered Ziplocs, but I'm not sure what the most efficient organization would be.
Thanks for your help if you have any ideas at all, and thanks especially for coming by this blog! I hope you've found something you like, and I promise to get something with pictures posted up again... eventually!
Showing posts with label General. Show all posts
Showing posts with label General. Show all posts
Saturday, 1 July 2017
Tuesday, 6 June 2017
Last Weekend
Hello, and welcome back to the Dark Ages!
Just a quick update today - I've been doing some gaming, but took no pictures :(
So I'll just briefly discuss what I did, and hopefully get pics next time I get around to playing some tabletop games.
First off, I tested my edits to the Dark Souls : The Board Game rules with two other players. Given that we were three, the game was fairly easy - not to mention that we forgot one element of difficulty. That said, they still need work. The iteration as we played it removed every single die roll from the game. This made for a fairly enjoyable and faster playing version of the Board Game, and one that your friends probably wouldn't hate you for making them play - after all, we won, and quite soundly.
The issue here is I have only tested it with three players so far. If it is more difficult but still playable with one player, I may have found my desired solution, making it somewhat of a party game with groups and more of a strategy and logic game with a deal of challenge when solo. Unfortunately, I think it may be too difficult solo, even impossible, with deterministic damage values. Part of this is just the toolbox I'm using - the way encounters are determined and how they work inherently guarantees single players get ganked, and multiple players get to spread the damage. There is no sneaking by, only drawing the aggro of single opponents, or speccing and kitting to go fast enough to attack multiple times against slower opponents.
Some of this I may still be able to solve, we'll see - so in summary, DS:BG project still ongoing.
The other thing I did was a game of Form Line of Battle, a 16th-19th c. naval wargame, with my wife. We played out the Chase of the Droits de l'Homme (https://threedecks.org/index.php?display_type=show_battle&id=684) pitting the French 3rd rate ship of the line Droits de l'Homme against the dynamic duo of British ships, the 5th rate Frigate Amazon and the famous 3rd rate ship of the line Indefatigable, commanded by Sir Edward Pellew himself. (that may only make sense if you have read/watched any of the Horatio Hornblower related media available out there - highly recommended to those with even a mild interest in the age of sail)
The action was fairly brutal, with a poor crew on the Droits de l'Homme restricting her maneuvering, but even though she was battered to within an inch of being mission-killed, she succeeded in passing by her pursuers (we played by setting up on opposite edges of a 3x2 ft board, with the short span between us, and halving all distances provided by the Form Line of Battle rules), faking out the Indefatigable and making her way to the edge of the board, winning what was surely a Pyrrhic victory. Just as in real life, the Droits de l'Homme had been splintered and her crew decimated. It's not hard to imagine her running aground shortly thereafter as occurred historically as well.
It's worth noting that even though we determined the ship's crew and command skills randomly, the way they came out seemed quite appropriate. The poor crew and average command of the French ship more than made up for her superior firepower against the excellently crewed and led British ships, meaning that if I had not been able to maneuver myself away thanks to a few lucky rolls, I would have been so many splinters in the ocean. Historically, the French ship had been crippled in a squall shortly before the action, so instead of tacking it on my sailors I could say that the damage to our rigging was what impeded our turning and tacking.
All in all both games were enjoyable, and I hope the next time I break one or both out I remember to record it better for posterity.
As a last postscript, I am about to enter a new phase in my career that may take up still more of my time. While long absences from the blog are no new thing, I will console myself by saying that at least I warned you this time.
Thanks again for your time, and I hope to see you in the comments below here and reading my future posts.
Just a quick update today - I've been doing some gaming, but took no pictures :(
So I'll just briefly discuss what I did, and hopefully get pics next time I get around to playing some tabletop games.
First off, I tested my edits to the Dark Souls : The Board Game rules with two other players. Given that we were three, the game was fairly easy - not to mention that we forgot one element of difficulty. That said, they still need work. The iteration as we played it removed every single die roll from the game. This made for a fairly enjoyable and faster playing version of the Board Game, and one that your friends probably wouldn't hate you for making them play - after all, we won, and quite soundly.
The issue here is I have only tested it with three players so far. If it is more difficult but still playable with one player, I may have found my desired solution, making it somewhat of a party game with groups and more of a strategy and logic game with a deal of challenge when solo. Unfortunately, I think it may be too difficult solo, even impossible, with deterministic damage values. Part of this is just the toolbox I'm using - the way encounters are determined and how they work inherently guarantees single players get ganked, and multiple players get to spread the damage. There is no sneaking by, only drawing the aggro of single opponents, or speccing and kitting to go fast enough to attack multiple times against slower opponents.
Some of this I may still be able to solve, we'll see - so in summary, DS:BG project still ongoing.
The other thing I did was a game of Form Line of Battle, a 16th-19th c. naval wargame, with my wife. We played out the Chase of the Droits de l'Homme (https://threedecks.org/index.php?display_type=show_battle&id=684) pitting the French 3rd rate ship of the line Droits de l'Homme against the dynamic duo of British ships, the 5th rate Frigate Amazon and the famous 3rd rate ship of the line Indefatigable, commanded by Sir Edward Pellew himself. (that may only make sense if you have read/watched any of the Horatio Hornblower related media available out there - highly recommended to those with even a mild interest in the age of sail)
The action was fairly brutal, with a poor crew on the Droits de l'Homme restricting her maneuvering, but even though she was battered to within an inch of being mission-killed, she succeeded in passing by her pursuers (we played by setting up on opposite edges of a 3x2 ft board, with the short span between us, and halving all distances provided by the Form Line of Battle rules), faking out the Indefatigable and making her way to the edge of the board, winning what was surely a Pyrrhic victory. Just as in real life, the Droits de l'Homme had been splintered and her crew decimated. It's not hard to imagine her running aground shortly thereafter as occurred historically as well.
It's worth noting that even though we determined the ship's crew and command skills randomly, the way they came out seemed quite appropriate. The poor crew and average command of the French ship more than made up for her superior firepower against the excellently crewed and led British ships, meaning that if I had not been able to maneuver myself away thanks to a few lucky rolls, I would have been so many splinters in the ocean. Historically, the French ship had been crippled in a squall shortly before the action, so instead of tacking it on my sailors I could say that the damage to our rigging was what impeded our turning and tacking.
All in all both games were enjoyable, and I hope the next time I break one or both out I remember to record it better for posterity.
As a last postscript, I am about to enter a new phase in my career that may take up still more of my time. While long absences from the blog are no new thing, I will console myself by saying that at least I warned you this time.
Thanks again for your time, and I hope to see you in the comments below here and reading my future posts.
Wednesday, 1 March 2017
Blog Silence?
Surely not here!
But in all seriousness, I haven't had another game of Battletech (and haven't completed or proofread the last battle report), nor have I finished the ongoing game of Combat Mission yet, so I didn't have anything of particular worth to post.
I played a game using my OGRE Designer's Edition Kickstarter box this weekend... but did not record it or take any pictures. Some will say it is because I lost, I will say it is because punching out all the counters frazzled my brain. The game was the Ceasefire Collapse scenario, and served as a fairly good example of just how good a large OGRE is, especially compared to small ones - two Mk II OGREs are no match for a Fencer-class under any circumstances that I could see.
For those of you who don't know what OGRE is, it's a board game based around the concept of large supertanks called OGREs, driven by their own artificial intelligence (in fluff - in reality, of course, the players control them). These are played in great detail, with record sheets for their weaponry and damage, against droves of conventional forces. These being largely cannon fodder, they simply (and oh so elegant - a masterstroke of game design) have their stats marked on their counters, so you can just peek over and see exactly what you're contending with when you're not dealing with the stars of the show. All rolls are done with 1d6 (except for one related to nuclear cruise missiles, for some reason), and all hit results are drawn from a neat 6x6 chart. Absolutely wonderful game design, and if the game took 3 hours this weekend, I know it was only because of our setup time and reviewing the rules.
Hopefully I can produce a game report of that eventually so you can see the quality of the Designer's Edition as well.
Well, I know it's not much of an update, but it will have to do for now. Once again, thanks for visiting, and I hope to see you around again with the next post!
But in all seriousness, I haven't had another game of Battletech (and haven't completed or proofread the last battle report), nor have I finished the ongoing game of Combat Mission yet, so I didn't have anything of particular worth to post.
I played a game using my OGRE Designer's Edition Kickstarter box this weekend... but did not record it or take any pictures. Some will say it is because I lost, I will say it is because punching out all the counters frazzled my brain. The game was the Ceasefire Collapse scenario, and served as a fairly good example of just how good a large OGRE is, especially compared to small ones - two Mk II OGREs are no match for a Fencer-class under any circumstances that I could see.
For those of you who don't know what OGRE is, it's a board game based around the concept of large supertanks called OGREs, driven by their own artificial intelligence (in fluff - in reality, of course, the players control them). These are played in great detail, with record sheets for their weaponry and damage, against droves of conventional forces. These being largely cannon fodder, they simply (and oh so elegant - a masterstroke of game design) have their stats marked on their counters, so you can just peek over and see exactly what you're contending with when you're not dealing with the stars of the show. All rolls are done with 1d6 (except for one related to nuclear cruise missiles, for some reason), and all hit results are drawn from a neat 6x6 chart. Absolutely wonderful game design, and if the game took 3 hours this weekend, I know it was only because of our setup time and reviewing the rules.
Hopefully I can produce a game report of that eventually so you can see the quality of the Designer's Edition as well.
Well, I know it's not much of an update, but it will have to do for now. Once again, thanks for visiting, and I hope to see you around again with the next post!
Tuesday, 10 December 2013
Introduction and Licensing
Welcome to the Dark Ages!
This post will serve to establish the guidelines under which I'll be operating on this blog. Simply put, this site is going to be a place for me to discuss opinions and works in a public setting, allowing for reader input and mature discussion on those subjects. It is my hope that you as readers are going to take advantage of this opportunity and leave a message or response on posts, stimulating the community!
I'll be touching on a variety of subjects that interest me on this site, but you can expect tabletop gaming, history, reading / writing and perhaps some illustration to be the staples of the site, as these are all domains in which I have done a fair amount of my own work, and which I feel confident discussing. My own education is in the realm of Political Science, with a particular specialization in geo-politics and philosophy, but I will do my best not to raise political issues, instead applying the skills I learned to less hot topics. While I hope that the community here will be a mature one (hence why I avoided YouTube, that wretched hive of scum and villainy), there are some buttons that are best not pressed, unless I am confident I can do so in an educated and even-handed way, and expect the same in return.
Before I leave you to explore the real meat and potatoes of this site, one major point still needs to be made clear. All items on this blog, text, images or otherwise, are licensed to myself under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License, unless otherwise stated in that particular post. What this basically means is that you can repost any of the goods that fall under this license as long as you credit me and link back here, and you make no money from them.
With all that said, I hope you enjoy what you are about to delve into, and of course, enjoy responsibly!
This post will serve to establish the guidelines under which I'll be operating on this blog. Simply put, this site is going to be a place for me to discuss opinions and works in a public setting, allowing for reader input and mature discussion on those subjects. It is my hope that you as readers are going to take advantage of this opportunity and leave a message or response on posts, stimulating the community!
I'll be touching on a variety of subjects that interest me on this site, but you can expect tabletop gaming, history, reading / writing and perhaps some illustration to be the staples of the site, as these are all domains in which I have done a fair amount of my own work, and which I feel confident discussing. My own education is in the realm of Political Science, with a particular specialization in geo-politics and philosophy, but I will do my best not to raise political issues, instead applying the skills I learned to less hot topics. While I hope that the community here will be a mature one (hence why I avoided YouTube, that wretched hive of scum and villainy), there are some buttons that are best not pressed, unless I am confident I can do so in an educated and even-handed way, and expect the same in return.
Before I leave you to explore the real meat and potatoes of this site, one major point still needs to be made clear. All items on this blog, text, images or otherwise, are licensed to myself under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License, unless otherwise stated in that particular post. What this basically means is that you can repost any of the goods that fall under this license as long as you credit me and link back here, and you make no money from them.
With all that said, I hope you enjoy what you are about to delve into, and of course, enjoy responsibly!
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