Wargaming; April 2021

Wargaming has taken a bit of a backseat for the last few months; my garage/table is freezing in Winter (so, no gaming) and I’ve finished painting my lead pile and have not been inspired to start a new project! But Spring is here and I’m keen to get started again.

I began by rewriting some generic army lists for all my Ancient and Medieval/Renaissance forces for both Impetus v2 (Imp2), and Sword and Spear (S&S) rules, to enable me to quickly pick-up and play. This was due to the release of the ‘new’ Impetus v2 Warbook volume 1, which covers the periods up to, and including, the Punic Wars. My standard army size for 15mm forces is 400 points (with 3 commands), and for 28mm forces only 300 points (as a single command). The new lists in the Impetus Warbook do differ a bit from the earlier lists, but they seem fine to me, except the authors do favour ‘large’ units. For example, I’m not sure I like my Greek hoplites to deploy in ‘large’ phalanx-like units; this will make the army stronger on the table but it just does not look right! Of course it is not compulsory to field ‘large’ units and as I’m not a competitive gamer, I can ignore this option (anyway, I prefer to play with S&S rules when using my Greeks because I feel the game is more interesting than when using Imp2).

Next I decided to refresh my knowledge of the Imp2 rules by playing a few solo games using my 28mm armies that have been in their boxes for too long. I played two Great Italian Wars battles followed by two Samurai battles (sorry, no photos taken). In the first game the Florentines were defeated by Pisan forces; main lesson was that militia pike are rubbish. In the next game an early French army took on Neapolitan Spanish, who I thought would struggle to oppose the twin threat of Gendarmes and Swiss pike. The first phase of the battle confirmed the issue, with the Swiss driving forward and forcing the Spanish foot to retreat, and the Gendarmes smashing some Italian knights before running into some Spanish knights. At this point, with the Spanish only 1 point away from demoralisation, the Dice Gods intervened! The Swiss pursuit failed to maintain contact and a second Spanish foot counter-charged their disorganised mass and massacred them. The Gendarmes were surprisingly held by the weaker Spanish, who then with the help of some flanking Genitors routed the French nobility. Suddenly from a winning position, the French army collapsed! I really enjoyed both games and like the way Imp2 plays out. My Samurai games were both close fought, bloody affairs. Neither army had obvious weak units, and this resulted in a bit of a slogging match, with the key to victory being the positioning and timing of reinforcing units.

A week or so later I decided to continue to use some of my armies that have not seen much action recently and play a couple of games of AK-47. I was undecided about whether I preferred the new AK-47 Reloaded over the older AK-47 Republic edition? I therefore decided to play the first game with old AK-47, then the next with the newer AK-47RL rules, both featuring a Dictator force versus a Peoples Revolution force on the same table layout. Rather than describe the action, I will instead discuss how the new AK-47RL rules work compared to their older predecessor: I like the expanded range of forces available. The pregame sequence is more complex compared to the old ‘political flow chart’ mechanism, but it still works well and is easy to follow. As a house rule, I would prevent carry-over in to a following week (this will mean nothing to people who have not played AK-47RL). In the game itself, AK-47RL has a lot more going on and is significantly more complex, and is therefore slower to play. The numerous markers employed can get overlooked and forgotten. The group of 3 rule for infantry and swapping of stands within units is a bit clunky; and the 1-2 base separation between groups awkward to maintain. The core combat mechanism is constant in both sets of rules (thankfully) and is ingenious, although the ‘doubles’ rule is easy to overlook! I really like the use of ‘assets’ and the late arrive of reserves and re-enforcements. In conclusion, I think the new AK-47RL rules are better for opposed games where two brains at the table helps and, additionally, each player can focus primarily on the actions of their own forces. For a solo experience AK-47RL is too intricate, and I would prefer to use the simpler, more free-flowing, open-ended original AK-47.

Boardgame Session; March 2021

March has seen various boardgame ‘classics’ return to the table: ‘Carcassonne’, ‘Castles of Burgundy’ etc. The only new game was ‘Hardback’ which Elaine received for her birthday. Elaine enjoys word based puzzles and games, and we already have ‘Paperback’ also published by Tim Fowers Games.

We were interested to see if ‘Hardback’ was significantly different from ‘Paperback’, or whether it was simply a derivative game. Both games are deck-building word games, but ‘Hardback’ does feel significantly unique to make it stand apart. In ‘Hardback’ any card can be used as a wild by playing it face-down. This makes formation of words easier, but wilds don’t yield the benefits of the card. To form words longer than your hand size of 5, you use ink markers to add extra cards/letters but these have to be used in your word and cannot be converted to wilds (there are also ‘Tipex’ markers to cancel the ‘ink’ restrictions). Additional cards can be bought to add to your deck, each giving different benefits, and these fall into 4 ‘genres’. Using 2 cards from the same genre in your word yields bonus benefits. ‘Hardback’ is a race to 60 prestige points, so it is easier to see your progress compared to opponents, whereas in ‘Paperback’ scoring is more hidden and the game length variable. The game comes with a few expansion rules etc., we have yet to make up our minds which work best and which we will avoid. Overall, I think ‘Hardback’ is a nice addition to our games collection and is sufficiently different to ‘Paperback’.

Boardgame Session; February 2021

In early in February we returned to a couple of familiar favourites; Carcassonne and Ticket to Ride-Europe. These are games we can take off the shelf and play with no preparatory revision or thought. They are comfortable classics, always enjoyed, always rewarding and I cannot imagine a game collection without them. We then returned to Mariposas which was discussed in last month’s post. I remain curious to see how it will work with more players, and I still would like some more player interaction (I have a couple of house-rule ideas which I may try in the future). The last couple of weeks of the month were devoted to more ‘competitive’, brain-taxing games. Targi provides a great challenge and the streamlined mechanics just work so smoothly. This is one of our best loved games, but strangely the new Targi-Expansion game has not grabbed our attention as much as I expected. I’m not sure why this is? Maybe it is time to get this ‘new’ game to the table and give it another try? The final game of the month was Glen More II. Another wonderful game that Elaine particularly likes (and frequently wins). We are still at the stage where the base game satisfies our needs, and the additional chronicles are not used. There are still a few chronicles we have not played (Hammer of the Scots, and Penny Mobs) but these can wait until we can socialise and expand our playing group. That was February. The vaccine is coming and lockdown slowly easing, so there is light on the horizon and wider gaming may return.

Boardgame Session; January 2021

Due to lockdown I am not playing boardgames with the usual groups of friends, and instead Elaine and I have been playing many 2-player games. So, I thought I would write a monthly account of the games we have brought to the table.

Early in January we played a number of games of ‘Mariposas’, the new Elizabeth Hargraves game that Elaine received as a Christmas present. The game is well produced/presented and nicely encapsulates the theme of the migration of the Monarch butterflies to/from Mexico into the central region of the US and southern Canada. It is a very different game compared to Wingspan, which I appreciate because too often follow up games are a re-hash of the previous ideas and mechanics. This is essentially a ‘race’ game that appears to be very simple but soon starts to challenge you on the approach to take to accumulate a winning points tally. I like the way the seasonal objects only become apparent once the migration is already underway. How many, and which, objectives to go for is key. The return of 4^th generation butterflies to Mexico is a consistent objective in all games and would appear easy, and then turn out to be less viable than you thought. I was initially concerned that the movement was too simple (a choice of one of two cards, and only a limited number of different card types), but it quickly became apparent that this simple decision was far from a limited choice. The turn lengths of the seasons was nicely balanced; frequently players remonstrated that if only they had one more turn, they would achieve all they hoped! In the 2-player game, the way-stations are less significant, the chances of uncovering all 4 of a particular set is low, so the bonus effect is unlikely to be claimed. I think this will have more of an impact in multiplayer games. My only criticism of the game is the lack of player interaction. I realise a strong ‘take-that’ mechanism would go against the peaceful butterfly theme but I would have appreciated some ‘mild’ interactions; maybe only the first butterfly to land on a particular hex in a turn harvests the pollen, or some form of blocking of hexes and pathways. Anyway, we both thoroughly enjoyed Mariposas and will play it often in the next few months.

The next games we got out were ‘Jaipur’ and ‘San Juan’; two classics we had not played for a while. I think it is important to return to games that may languish on the shelf, rather than constantly keep chasing the ‘new’ game experience. Both these games are fast with sharp, clear-cut focussed mechanics. Jaipur is a trading game that centres on the timing of whether to buy/trade/sell and when to take the camels. The end of a round can come quickly and take you by surprise, so you have to keep an eye on your opponent at all times. San Juan, in contrast, is an engine builder and uses role choice for each round. Again, the game is short and the end can ambush you. There are multiple ways to victory, with no one strategy dominating.

Finally this month, back to the new game market because I bought ‘Glasgow’. A quick tile laying game that reminds me of a very slimmed down version of Glen More. The player turn is determined on a ‘roundel’ mechanism, and the resource collection and buying is similar. Much more has been stripped out, leaving a fast, thinky game with a fair bit of take-that, and I can see this becoming a regularly played 2-player game in my collection.