Tide of Dice

Short break at work, so a short post about last week's games.

It was technically Brian's pick at my place - he couldn't think of anything he particularly wanted, so he said he'd decide once we got there.

We played Liar's Dice (a.k.a Bluff, Perudo, Bullsh*t, etc.) again - it's a quick filler. My parents were around until 8 PM, so we played something they could get into easily.

Afterwards, I left it up to Brian and he selected Tide of Iron, a recent wargame purchase I had made which was sitting off to the side on the kitchen table (only because I hadn't found time to stuff it into the downstairs closet, not because I was trying to push it on anyone.

Tide of Iron is a introductory/novice level wargame aimed at people who are interested in WWII tactical combat but don't want the complexity of Combat Commander: Europe, Advanced Squad Leader or the Advanced Tobruk System. That said, it's about two steps up in terms of complexity from Memoir '44.

It has a long set up time, necessitated by its interesting but somewhat flawed modular squad composition system and geomorphic terrain system. Components are excellent and rules are great. It's a very good low-medium (3-4 out of 10) complexity wargame, good for transitioning players between games like Memoir '44 and more grognardy offerings.

The tag-team of Bharmer and Ouch kept me hard pressed through the game and finally broke through with one turn remaining. I did handicap myself somewhat by giving myself fewer starting Strategy cards than is called for in the scenario, but it didn't make all that much of a difference, and they played well.

No time for a more detailed review save to say that Tide of Iron will be waiting for the day my eldest son turns 10 or 11 or so. I think he'll enjoy it quite a bit.

It takes two to tango (Napoleon, Baker Street, Tally Ho!, Memoir '44)

In an effort to play a few games which rarely see table time, we decided to make this Wednesday all about 2 player games.

There was exactly 4 of us, so we paired off and picked from a stack of available titles. Kozure and Brian picked "Baker Street" (note to self, Brian needs an alias) and Luch and I chose Napoleon.

I recently picked up this copy of the Gamma 2 edition of Napoleon used. I had wanted to try out a Columbia Block game, and I had heard lots of people recommend this one as a nice introductory game.
The game itself looks a little dated with the simple graphics stamped directly on the wood blocks, but unlike current Columbia Games offerings, the board is mounted (which is nice).

I won't get into much description regarding what a "block game" is. If you don't know, go to BGG or the Columbia Games website. Suffice it to say that each player's units are represented by wooden blocks, with the statistics of those units printed on one side. Essentially, you know WHERE your opponent's units are, but not WHAT they are (or how damaged they are).
This is a pretty early one, with the version I purchased dating from the '70s.

Basically, one player plays the French forces led by Napoleon and the other player plays the English and the Prussians. The goal of each player is to eliminate half of the opposing player's units. Movement is simple... essentially players can move the forces from two cities to any adjacent cities on their turn. If units of opposing forces find themselves in the same city, they do battle. Battle is handled by a separate "Battle Board" where units face off across a battle line and use various maneuvres to try to "Rout" the ennemy. Interestingly, each side of the line is split into three regions (termed "columns") similar to Memoir '44 (and Battle Cry/ C&C ancients). I haven't played enough war games to know whether such an organization is frequently used in war games or not, but the left, middle and right flank arrangement must be fairly representative of the fighting for this period.

The rules make the English/Prussian player (the "allies") place his/her pieces on the board first, and city limits ensure that the units are rather scattered to start. The French player not only has the advantage of being able to place second (thus exploiting any weaknesses in the starting player's position), but is allowed to group his/her forces into much larger concentrations and move first as well. Of course, the French are outnumbered, and have a VERY short time limit to defeat the enemy, so they need a few breaks.

I played the French both times. In the first game, Luch positioned his forces along the flanks. I concentrated my units down the middle and marched right up to a rather easy victory. The second game, Luch was not so easily fooled. He started further back and more spread out, though with a concentration in the middle. I decided to try two large forces down both flanks. This was harder to accomplish. I succesfully marched to Ghent and also took Brussels, easily destroying the British. Unfortunately, the Prussians where putting a solid defense at Liege and I was very close to losing due to attrition. 3 badly hurt units were on the run from a large and powerful Prussian army, hoping to last long enough for the Prussian supply problems to make them implode. It came down to a single die roll, as my band faced yet another round of pursuit fire on the last turn before the Prussian defeat. If any units survived, the win was mine. A single unit did, and with that Napoleon won.

I liked it. In time, I think I'll pick up Rommel in the Desert and Hammer of the Scots. Wargames have a "freedom of movement" (for lack of a better expression) which is lacking in most Eurogames, so it's nice to have games such as these in a collection (alongside euro-american hybrids like Duel of Ages, Fury of Dracula, and the like). This game's mechanics feels fairly modern, despite their age. It's a pretty clean, simple and short game. The "battle board" is a nice way to bring a finer grain to what would otherwise be a highly abstracted war game. That said, I can't seem to interpret some of rules (the rule book provided is quite vague, and researching a 30 year old game online isn't easy). Despite the fact that this game is still technically "in print", the current version is quite different. I've read the new rules, and tried to extrapolate how to they would apply to the 1st edition, but some rules are still frustratingly vague. Particularly, many rules depend on the units being "engaged", but in practice it's quite hard to tell at times if they are or not. Anyway, I'll post to the forums and get that stuff worked out. I had fun, and I think Luch liked it too. It would have been nice to play a game with Kozure, since he's the wargame guy, but we'll save that for another time.

We followed up with a quick game of Tally Ho. Not much to say about that one... it's a cute game, enjoyable for what it is, but the luck in the initial random placement probably decides most games.

Last, we played Memoir '44. We combined two sets with the intention of playing the "Omaha Beach" Overloard scenario... little did we know those rules are meant for 8 players! Rather, we simply left each player in charge of one half of the battle and played it straight. It was Luch and Kozure as the Axis vs. Brian and I as the Allies. My tanks were eliminated very early by a "barrage" attack, but Brian's managed to break the enemy line and cross to some of the towns worth victory points. I had a hard time accomplishing anything since I was being cut down as fast as I could get onto the beach. Luckily, my own "Barrage" wiped out Luch's artillery compound (a very unlikely event) and gave me some breathing space. It came down to the wire, but Kozure and Luch pulled a victory by knocking out a different group of Brian's tanks who were racing to occupy another town for the last point.

Fun game, if only it didn't take so long to set up!!!

They Blowed Up Real Good!

The theme for this week was explosions – and the happenings of the evening fit the theme. Starting with our explosive meal of chilli and “Caramel Explosion” ice cream, we dove right into Zero!

Having played this game in several different sessions now, we’re finally getting the hang of it. We decided to go with match play, with one element each of a P-40E and a P-40D vs. two elements of Zeroes for the first fight, then switching sides for the second. On one team was Easy and Kozure (IJN), on the other was Shemp and Hapi (USAF). The battle was spread over the skies, with elements pairing off against each other at High and Low altitudes. Eventually both pairs met up at middle altitude, and both sides lost two aircraft each, tying the game.

With Easy and Kozure now sitting in the American planes, the second battle started with both of the Yanks at medium altitude, but the Japanese were spread out at Very High and Low. The four Warhawks dove down on Hapi’s hapless Zekes, Hapi losing one aircraft to Kozure’s fire before managing to climb out of the fight to meet up with Shemp diving from above. In the swirling furball which followed, Shemp first lost an aircraft to a fuel tank explosion, and Hapi lost his second paper kite to another sniper shot fuel tank explosion by Easy.

Shemp managed to stay alive to the end of the fight, but the match was decided… three aircraft down vs. none. In match play, the Kozure/Easy team took the ring.

The second game(s) of the night was the Battle Cry/Memoir ’44 system – both essentially the same system with minor cosmetic tweaks suitable to the time period; both rulesets were designed by Richard Borg. Battle Cry was the earlier offering from the Hasbro/Avalon Hill line in 2000, with Memoir ’44 coming out from Days of Wonder in 2004.

The system used by both games works on a very simple turn order. Play a command card, order the units indicated by the card, move the ordered units, battle with the ordered units, then draw a new card. Each player can have a command/control advantage if he or she has more or less command cards as dictated by the scenario. The board is divided into three sections, the left flank, the right flank and the centre. Command cards refer to those sections or combinations thereof. Some cards allow special effects to occur, and in Memoir ’44, the “Ambush” card allows an “interrupt” of sorts. Movement is simple – three hexes for tanks and cavalry, one hex and battle for infantry (two if they don’t battle in Memoir ’44) and move one or battle for artillery. The generals, unique to Battle Cry, move three hexes. Terrain affects movement in a variety of ways, typically making it impossible to fire after moving into most terrains except hills.

Battling is the simple case of rolling a number of dice, modified by range, and trying to roll the silhouette of the targeted unit. Some results (crossed swords in Battle Cry and a grenade in Memoir ’44) are wild-card hits. Memoir has the addition die-face result of “star” which has a special effect for some cards.

Having played several game sessions on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, my recollection of the battles were hazy, but a few quick e-mails pointed me back in the right direction. I played Easy at Memoir ’44 as the dilatory Germans in the introductory “Pegasus Bridge” scenario and lost 4 flags to 6. Playing as the Union, Shemp crushed Hapi in the First Bull Run scenario in Battle Cry, 6 medals to 2. Everyone seemed to enjoy the games, so I think they’ll make another appearance.

The last game of the evening was the admittedly silly Unexploded Cow. France has too much unexploded ordinance left over from WWII. England has too many cows infected with mad-cow disease. The solution? Start a business using cows to detonate the bombs! Yes, this has to be one of the more politically incorrect games we can play (along with Puerto Rico’s brown “colonists”) but it is fun.

The game is more or less an investment vs. risk system, wherein each player “invests” a portion of his stake every turn (buying various ranks and types of cows), then rolls a die to see if it pays off (they set off a bomb). Strategy enters the game in the form of certain cows with special abilities, and the ability to play cows with negative payoffs into opposing players’ fields. It’s quick and dirty, and the illustrations are fun. We tried two styles: the basic version, where the point value of the city being rescued is random, and the “strategic version”, where the point value of the city increases by one each turn. Strangely, the group preferred the random version, as it seemed to fit the random nature of the game. Hapi won both games, and Shemp finished last. Easy and I switched places, I believe, for second and third place in the two games.

EDIT: The correct sequence was Game 1: Hapi, Kozure, Shemp, Easy; Game 2: Easy, Hapi, Kozure, Shemp

Unexploded Cow is pretty light – almost too light - but it is entertaining, and that’s the key.

All in keeping with the theme, everything blowed up real good.