MMP's Grand Tactical Series

[MengJiao]

This looks pretty good.  I'm ordering at least Where Eagles Dare (the less sharp endo of Market Garden) and No Question of Surrender (just your basic Bir Hakim!).

The system has some resemblances to a game from about 1990:  Stand and Die (the battle of Mozhansk 1941):  500 meter hexes, 2 hour turns, company level units, formation activation.  I'm supposing there is less resemblance in the details and anyway I loved Stand and Die -- especially the flip your truck to transport etc mechanics (which are identical in GTS).

[bayonetbrant]

They all look very cool, but I just don't know that I have the time to invest in learning/playing them with everything else going on :(

[mirth]

^That should in no way stop you from purchasing them.  ;D

[MengJiao]

^That should in no way stop you from purchasing them.  ;D

Lol for real.  Yes.  There's no way I'm going to play even the whole 101 Airborne part of Marketgarden.  I'll probably
do what I usually do and come up with some highly randomized solitaire meeting engagment scenario.

Bir Hakim, though.  I think I could get through most of that and have the added benefit of having a good story to tell
the arty girls who come up to the loft and see a map on the floor with cardboard squares all over it.

Fontenoy turned out to be impossible to explain:  "Who?  the Dutch?  Are they winning?"

Bir Hakim.  You can make it sound all Casablanca: "Yes the Free French are fighting to the last man against the Fascists in an Old Turkish Fortress at the Well of the Dog."  And throw in some Indiana Jonesian pseudo-history.  "The Well of the Dog.   Probably named for the constellation Canopus or the Can-opener of the sky dog by a Neo-Babylonian mercenary.  And then mistranslated by the local Senussi so that it fit in with their story of Sidi Hakim -- the Tomb of the Dog."

[mirth]

I'm impressed. You've worked on an angle with chicks around your wargaming. The best I've done is to rely on nerdy cuteness that some women find charming in an amusing sort of way.

[MengJiao]

I'm impressed. You've worked on an angle with chicks around your wargaming. The best I've done is to rely on nerdy cuteness that some women find charming in an amusing sort of way.

Well, Bir Hakeim would be the only time this angle might materialize.  Note also even that supposed materialization is not a sure thing.

Still, nearly anything would be better than the Fontenoy Fiasco, but now that I think about it even Fontenoy would probably be better than trying to explain Roads to Leningrad (the Vatutin angle?  The importance of radios?) or the 101 Airborne part of marketgarden (I got nothin'...which would elicit the dreaded "Who do you imagine you are when you play these games?  The world's greatest general?").

[mirth]

If you try any of those scenarios, remember to wear your GrogHeads boxers.

http://www.cafepress.com/grogheads.684663017