Boardgame session: 14 July 2019

Elaine and I have played, and enjoyed, a number of games of Western Legends. I was therefore very interested in how the game would play with more players, and this Sunday we got a chance to try it out.

Firstly there is no ‘Man in Black’ chasing you around the board doing almost random damage. I really like this mechanism to allow 2-player games, but it is not required in larger player counts. There is much more direct player interaction when the player count increases, but it takes time for new players to appreciate the need to attack others. In our group there is also a tendency to follow the Marshal points pathway, rather than the more uncertain Wanted path to glory. I kept to my character (Jessie James) profile and robbed as much as possible, but being the only Wanted player, I did get the attention of the Sheriff more than I would have liked. The Story Cards are more rapidly completed compared to the 2-player version. The increased player count does slow the game, and we found the short (15 point) game took roughly 2½ hours to complete. All the various location actions were utilised, and all players realised the value of the Cabaret in turning money in to Legendary Points near the end of the game. Chris (Bloody Knife) was the clear winner by managing to find 4 gold nuggets, depositing them successfully at the bank (together with some Fools Gold) and quickly spending the money on a blow-out at the Cabaret, thereby earning a large number of Legendary Points in quick time. Unfortunately neither Elaine (YB Rowdy) nor I could intervene to stop him due to our location on the far side of the board! Val (Billy the Kid) progressed steadily, mainly focussed on stealing cattle and being a skilled poker player! Chris clearly won, but the final scores for each other player were fairly close.

I hope all enjoyed playing the game, and I think they did, but it is difficult to judge when you are  playing, explaining and running a particular ‘new’ boardgame. I’m sure further plays will be faster now all are familiar with the concepts and options. I think both 2-player and multi-player versions are equally good, but do offer different experiences. For the multi-player game to work, players have to accept the need for their characters to interact and fight frequently. The fact there is no player elimination, and that wounds are a mere inconvenience, should encourage such behaviour.

Off the Painting Table (July 2019) part 2

The Western theme continues. I bought a box of 20 Wild West figures produced by Blue Moon whilst at the Partizan show a few months back. Any Western town needs a good smattering of civilians to add colour and break up play a little, so these figures will do nicely.

The figures are well produced and have a lot of character. The ‘soiled doves’ contrast nicely with the various shopkeepers and more prim townsmen and women.

I enjoy painting these small projects; they break up the ‘monotony’ of larger projects, such as my Han Chinese. I now feel re-energised to get back and complete those few pesky Chinese that have been awaiting my attention.

Off the Painting Table (July 2019)

Summer is here and my wargaming activity has declined; too many other things to do. My Han Chinese army lies in a near complete but dormant state. I have realised I need a few more units to enable me to field opposing armies, so an order needs to be placed. I will not texture the bases etc. until these fresh units are painted.

After returning from a break in France (based around Caen), I have painted the figures from the ‘Western Legends’ boardgame. I am pretty happy with the results photographed below:

My old camera, which was never very good, seems to have developed ‘issues’ since returning from France. The first photo has a streaking effect for an unknown reason, and the images are more blurred than usual. I think a new camera is becoming a necessity!

As an aside, whilst in Caen we discovered by accident a nice boardgame cafe/bar on the quayside called ‘Bar Newport’. They had a good range of games and charged no table fee. It was really pleasant to sit playing a few games over a beer or coffee and watch the world go by.

Later this month we have our local Devizes show; Attack. I will as usual be there helping out and will post a report on this blog. I always look forward to this show because it usually provides a kickstart to my wargaming mojo.

General Gaming; June 2019

The weeks seem to have passed and my diary has prevented me from playing any competitive wargames etc. I thought I would write a short post on what I have been doing recently. The painting table has been fairly busy as I plough my way through my Han Chinese army. I am not reporting on this as I progress and will just present the finished article in a future post.  My gaming has been solo, and I have focused on rules from Too Fat Lardies. I find solo gaming a useful exercise to refresh my memory of rules and mechanisms. Firstly I played a couple of games of ‘Chain of Command’; a rules system I enjoy and gives a good (?) representation of platoon-level combat. I played using my British Para forces for the first time and they pack quite a punch, the German opponents need to work hard to get a result from such a match up. Next I moved on to the Lardies ‘Sharp Practice’ rule set, playing Napoleonic Peninsular skirmishes. I really like these rules and think they give an even better game than Chain of Command. The games always seem to tell a story and yield memorable moments. The last game (shown below) revolved around 2 lines firing volleys at each other until one side gave way, but the flanks were more fluid; British Light Dragoons bouncing a charge from the heavier French, whilst on the other flank some Voltigeurs ejected the 95^th Rifles from a village.

On the boardgame front, Elaine and I have played some 2-player games. We enjoyed ‘7 Wonders – Duel’ (borrowed from Val and Chris). The designers have nicely kept the original theme and most of the mechanisms from the basic ‘7 Wonders’ game, but added a real ‘take-that’ element to the city building. I like the balance achieved with the Military and Science aspects, so that neither dominate the game, and the linkages between cards works and is not too fussy.

We have also managed to get ‘Western Legends’ to the table as a 2-player game. I was worried when I bought the game that Elaine would not be keen to play. The game is clearly a theme-driven, Wild West Ameritrash game involving player conflict and multiple paths to victory; not Elaine’s normal ‘cup of tea’! To my great surprise (and relief) she likes the game, and we have now played 3 times in a week. Game play is quick and the rules simple. Actions are varied, but not overly complex, and fit well with the thematic story. The conflict aspect is again thematic and fast to resolve, and there is no player elimination. The objectives are clear and, in our games, the results were tight. The board and components are attractive and easy to understand. The 2-player version includes a good dummy player, ‘The Man in Black’, which works well but seems to have a tendency to hunt down Elaine’s character in most turns! I look forward to trying the game in a 4-player mode, where more player interaction is bound to occur. I also think the model figures would benefit from a paint job.

Show Report; UKGE 2019 (NEC, Birmingham)

We went for our annual visit to UKGE at Birmingham NEC, but this year we stayed off site and located ourselves in Coventry. The hotel prices were much more reasonable and it was only a 10-15 minutes train ride into the NEC, with 4/5 trains per hour and costing less than £3 for a return trip. Yet again the drive up on Friday was bad and we arrived more than an hour later than planned.

The show was basically the same as last year, with a huge array of traders, games, punters and events. There seemed to be fewer cos-players than previous years whilst the competitive gaming looked more crowded. One aspect of UKGE that I’m not sure about is its inclusion of competitive wagaming, there are enough dedicated wargaming shows out there and I cannot see what this inclusion brings to the table. UKGE should be about boardgame (and RPG?) related subjects and not miniature wargaming. The catering at the NEC remains poor but this year there was beer available in the evenings. We spent our time alternating between shopping, gaming, talking to traders and occasionally trying new kickstarter games. We did not visit the Bring and Buy (again); the queues were horrendous, but Chris did manage to sell his excess games and generate much needed dosh! My shopping haul is shown below:

We did not spend too much, and there was not an ‘outstanding’ game of the show to dominate peoples spending. Last year everyone appeared to have bought or were playing  ‘Photosynthesis’, whereas the mix of games this year was much more varied. We had to have the new ‘Clever’ game and from a hurried play, it seems interesting. I also wanted the ‘classic’ bidding game of High Society, which did not cost much. Ominoes was an impulse buy and demonstrates the importance of good customer interaction on a trade stall! I also bought ‘Western Legends’, a game I have wanted for some time, and I can say it weighs a ton!

Much of our time at the show was spent gaming in the ‘Open Gaming’ area and a list of the games played (plus my personal rating for each game) is given below:

Tiny Towns (bought by Val & Chris)	5/5
Apotheca (Thisty Meeples game library)	3½/5
8-Minute Empire (Thisty Meeples library)	3/5
Arboretum (Thisty Meeples game library)	2½/5
Ominoe’s (our purchase)	4/5
Unexpected Treasures ((Thisty Meeples)	4/5
Welcome To... (Thisty Meeples game library)	2/5
Doppelt So Clever (our purchase)	3½/5
Wingspan (bought by Val & Chris)	5/5

 

The best game played was easily Wingspan; a beautiful game with great artwork and components, combined with nice mechanics. I would buy a copy myself if a UK/European bird version came out, but until then we will content ourselves by playing Val and Chris’s copy. Tint Towns was also excellent as a game, but its price-tag seemed too high considering the rather average components. This year all the games we played were worth the time spent. I was not particularly enthused by ‘Welcome To...’, and ‘Arboretum’ needs more game time to fully appreciate the game play and scoring system.

Elaine and I left Coventry on Sunday morning feeling tired and not too overspent. We did not attend the final day but I think a full 3 days at UKGE would prove too much. We were gamed-out and I think a few days will be needed before we sit down to play any further boardgames.

Show Report; Partizan 2019

Unfortunately, due to illness, I missed this year’s Salute show. As compensation I decided to attend Partizan in Newark, a show I have never visited before. Elaine decided to come with me and have an extended w/e by exploring Newark itself, and visiting friends in Nottingham. We drove up on Saturday and wandered around the small, but interesting, town centre. We visited the English Civil War museum (which was OK) and castle area. In the late afternoon we discovered a boardgame cafe  (Letsxcape2together) and decided to spend a couple of hours playing games before finding a restaurant for dinner. The cafe has a reasonable range of games available and provided a very friendly and welcoming atmosphere. We spend much time chatting to the owner about games in general and wargaming activity in the area. I recommend others to call in if they are in Newark.

On the Sunday we went to the Partizan show at the Newark showground.  Parking was free and extensive, and the hall was large, well laid out, with good natural light and room to move around. As well as the usual traders, there were large numbers of well presented participation and demonstration games covering a wide range of genres and historical periods. It was interesting that Elaine came to the show because I could get an opinion of a non-wargaming participant rather than just seeing things with my own perspective. She was very impressed by the modelling skills presented, both in terms of the beauty of the figures and the scenic terrain they were situated on. She also praised the friendly enthusiasm of many organisers who were happy to discuss what they were doing to a complete novice like Elaine. I actually think she enjoyed the couple of hours she spent at the show, but not enough to take up the hobby!

There were many games that took my eye. WW2 was well represented (as usual) and the game that stood out for me was a ‘Malaya, 1942’ Chain of Command game by TooFatLardies – lovely! I was also most impressed by the GNW game by the Grimsby Wargamer Society. Other notable games included a Turk v Moldovan game; a large Indian Mutiny battle; a Boxer Rebellion skirmish game; a Napoleonic Egypt battle, plus some Sharp Practice skirmishes (sorry, I did not note who put these games on). Overall I think the standard of games was very high, far better than a lot of shows I have attended, where I think the quality levels have dropped recently. Interestingly, there was no ‘new’ wargame period, genre, rules or feature that stood out as the must see or must buy item. May be Partizan is too close to Salute for this to be the case? I did manage to get most of the paints, bases and figures that I wanted to buy plus, of course, a few unplanned purchases (e.g. orange trees for a small orchard). These will feature in future posts on this blog.

To conclude, I really enjoyed and was impressed by Partizan. I can see myself attending future Partizan shows (The Other Partizan in August?), and would recommend the show to wargamers wherever you are based in the UK.

AAR: Normans v Scots (Saga v2) 12May2019

In this SAGAv2 game I played a new opponent, Dan, who fielded a Dark Age Scots army. As I’ve never faced Scots before I was interested in what they would bring to the table. Interestingly, I have never played using my own Normans; in fact they have only got to the table once and then were used by my opponent. They were the last Dark Age SAGA force I painted, and this was as my interest in SAGAv1 faded. So, this would be a game played by novices, using unfamiliar forces. I should also thank Dave from the club for his help and advice to both of us during the game.

We played the vanilla ‘Clash of Warlords’ scenario and used a random, generic terrain set up (a few gentle hills and woods). Also for purely curiosity reasons, I decided to field my bow levy troops as 2 weak, 6-man units, rather than the normal 12-man unit. I had an 8-man unit of mounted knights and another 8-man mounted sergeants unit, plus an 8-man crossbow unit and 8-man spear unit. After a cursory reading of the Norman battle-board, I decided the best plan was to take some ranged pot-shots at any exposed Scots, before unleashing my mounted troops a.s.a.p. Nothing fancy here!

The first turn proceeded as expected, my left-hand levy’s using ‘volley’ fire to increase their range and killed a couple of Scots. I foolishly advanced my right-hand levy into some woods, and these were promptly attacked and thrown out by some Scots warriors. I was now concerned that these warriors were in a good position to continue their attack and hit my rather exposed crossbowmen.

Normans at the bottom (on a very sunny day)

Next turn I charged on some other Scots warriors with my mounted sergeants; the warriors closed ranks but were narrowly beaten back. Dan then moved his woodland warriors back to threaten the rear of the mounted sergeants, who looked doomed (but, my crossbows breathed a sigh of relief!). Next turn I went ‘all-in’ charging with the mounted sergeants (again) and my knights on the other flank. I boosted the Sergeants as much as possible and again gained a narrow win. Now it was the turn of my strong unit of knights and I soon discovered the power of the Scots. I had no extra modifiers to my basic 16d6 allocation, but Dan played ‘Long Spears’ converting 4 attack dice to defence dice, and then ‘Counter-Attack’ which gained him 8 additional attack dice! I received 6 hits and save none! My glorious knights had been mauled by some measly Scots with spears!

Norman left flank, where the levy not only survived but actually did some damage.

For the following couple of turns I could not throw a single ‘flag’ symbol, and the remaining dice were either all ‘helmets’ or all ‘shields’ (bizarre). My mounted sergeants made a valiant effort to try and killed the Scots warlord, but failed and were wiped out. My 2 remaining knights tried to KO a 3-man unit of Scots levy, and failed also.

The Norman crossbows about to get their prime target, the mounted Scots warlord.

In the final turns I did manage to clear the Scots levy and this opened a path for my crossbowmen to fire on the Scots warlord himself. I used the ‘Wounded’ ability to gain 2 auto-hits and diced for 1 more. The warlord failed to save any of the 3 hits, and perished. This seemed to anger his mounted Thanes, who moved from behind some woods and charged my crossbows. My Normans survived and shot the last Scots Thane next turn.

The game ended and we tallied the ‘massacre’ points. The Normans won by 23 v 15. This was a really enjoyable game and the margin was larger than I expected (I thought the loss of those 6 knights would have hurt more). The Norman strategy basically focussed on their mounted attacks, but it was the crossbowmen who really won the game. I think the Scots missed a trick by turning back with the warriors in the woods. Dan really used his battleboard well; the ‘No Respite’ ability is really annoying to the opponent, as is ‘Reach’ whereby suddenly most Scots become armed with javelins! The Normans are a powerful, if one dimensional, force and if (!) you roll ‘flags’ then I think they can be a tough nut to crack. As a final note, I fielded my Norman warlord on foot, not mounted, because I wanted to a play a SAGA game where my leader survives for once.