09/5/13

Allied Corps – AAR Part 3

When we left off with Part 2 of this AAR the Germans had pulled out everything but the kitchen sink. There weren’t a lot of German forces, but what we ran into was quality. Neberwerfers, tank-busting aircraft, Tigers, V-2s…the list was pretty long. Almost every piece of high-tech equipment the Germans could field late in the war had made a showing and I was the guy having to beat it up. As you may recall, dear reader, I was pushing my way into the Netherlands. I had to take objectives in the north, west, and south. Thus far I had chosen to focus on the west and south, leaving the north until later. Through some kind of luck – simply having troops occupying some rail hexes, I inadvertently captured a train with some hot cargo. That was a pleasant surprise.

Allied Corps AAR-073

With that, let’s pick up the story at Turn 9.

Allied Turn 9

I start by hammering on the troops around Leiden. I don’t need to attack them as I hold the objective, but I take them on for good measure. Note the captured train next to my jeep in the middle of the screen:

Allied Corps AAR-074

Then I move to attack the Nashorn. My Sherman 105s gives it a good shot and inflicts some decent hurt. Then my Hellcats move up and attack some more. The Nashorn drops to a single point left. I send my Sherman 76s to finish it off. They do. Continue reading →

09/4/13

Seasons – Deconstructing the Boardgame

So exactly what would you expect to find in a game simply titled Seasons with a wizards and a stylized nature scene on the box?

Brant Guillory, 4 September 2013
Photos by Henry Vogel

“Hey man! I need a new kind of game to play.  Help me out and let’s design one together, OK?”

“Sure!  What kind of game do you want?”

“Well, I’ve been a huge Magic: The Gathering fan for about five years now, so I definitely want something with some deck-building in it.  But collectible games are getting such a bad rep that there’s no way we’re going to make any money off of it, so I’m thinking something like Dominion, where the cards all come in the box, y’know?  But still magic and wizards and sorcerers and stuff.”

“OK, so kind of Magic: The Gathering, but all in one box?  That’s intriguing.  But how do we make it not so obvious that it’s just Magic-In-A-Box, or, maybe ‘Mox’ for short?”

“Well, I’ve been thinking about this, and there’s other games like the new Warhammer Fantasy Role Play and Quarriors that have these custom dice with all sorts of different symbols on them, where the symbols determine what you get to do each turn, so that might be cool.  It would mean that we could replace Magic’s mana cards with some kind of roll-dice-get-mana action or something.  And we can do cool colors, too.”

“I like that.  People love rolling dice.  Well, except those snooty Eurogamers who don’t believe in randomness.  But if you can put buckets of dice in there, you’ll definitely get anyone who loves a wargame to come running!  But that just gets the mana distributed, and it doesn’t really tell you what kind of mana you have.” Continue reading →

09/3/13

Tuesday Screenshot – Aliens: Colonial Marines

click to enlarge

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In space no one can hear you sue. After all the bad press, horrendously negative feedback and legal shenanigans, I decided to pick up Aliens: Colonial Marines anyway. I love the Aliens universe and I got the game very heavily discounted. Three hours into the single player campaign, I so far feel I got my money’s worth.
I have gotten some scares, some challenging levels and even a chuckle or too at the use of the Aliens canon. If you held off on getting Colonial Marines like I did but are still kinda sorta curious, now may be as good a time as any to pick it up…discounted, of course. Tell them Gus sent you. And then after they ask “Who?” you can ask if the game is still discounted.
Ultimately, not a bad way to spend a few dollars and a few hours waiting for one of the biggest PC releases of the year…
09/2/13

Sid Meier’s Ace Patrol

Developer: Firaxis

Publisher: 2K Games

Author: Boggit

click images to enlarge

Sid Meier’s Ace Patrol is a game about aerial combat on the Western Front during the First World War. As my prayers so far for a re-release of an updated, and revamped version of Achtung Spitfire, Over the Reich, and Flight Commander 2 have so far gone unanswered, I picked this one up as it seemed somewhat reminiscent of them.

acepatrol1

The Interface is intuitive and easy to learn. The game also features a “Baron-o-pedia” for extra information.

For a game about the First World War, it is a surprisingly very “PC” game for the PC. You can’t die, and you can’t kill your opponents. Following the suspension of historical accuracy is that half your pilots are women, you can play the US in 1916, and you don’t seem to have any limits on ammunition. Your opponent pilots seem to acquire combat victories at a surprising rate, even after you shoot them down several times, so that by the late war they often have more kills than your own aces – weird! That’s about the worst of it. It’s definitely NOT a “Grognard game”, but in my opinion it’s fun, and light relief – a good “Beer and Pretzels” game. As to gaming challenge, it offers five levels of difficulty from “Rookie” to “Legend”, which gives victory point multipliers for successful missions.

acepatrol2

The game map is clear and informative. Note the different manoeuvre options, cloud, and “Archie” cover (red hexsides). The front line is clearly evident, and can determine the fate of shot down aircrew.

Continue reading →

08/30/13

GARPA 26 – GrogHeads Advanced Research on Projects Advisory

Authors: Dan Pinkham & Lloyd Sabin

Ahh…there is almost a chill in the air and the children are being herded back to school.  That means football season and fall must almost be here. Unfortunately that also means pumpkin in everything you can eat and drink but never fear: GARPA shall remain pumpkin free but still contain all the gaming nutrition you expect.

Board and Tabletop Games

A War of Kings –Playing Cards by Andy Fischer

$8,056 pledged of a $10,500 goal funding ending September 7th

1 War of KingsTo be honest I am getting off easy with this entry but it is too cool looking of a project not to feature here at GARPA. It is a deck of cards. That’s right, 54 playing cards.  However, “each suit is a distinctly different set of fantasy characters, featuring White and Dark Knights, Fire Mages and Barbarians.”  That’s the project, that’s all there is: a card deck with some sweet looking fantasy art. We’ll post some pictures here but make sure to check out their project page for even more art samples.

Fantasy Frontier by Gamelyn Games

$5,187 pledged of a $25,000 goal funding ending October 8th

There is something so very intriguing about airships. Perhaps it is the well-known disaster of the Hindenburg and the idea of what could have been had it not happened. Maybe it is just the notion of slowly drifting through the clouds in your very own dirigible. Whatever the case may be I thought most of us, if honest, find the idea at least interesting.

Since we can’t all go out and buy an airship, we have to keep dreaming and game with them. Fantasy Frontier is here to help with “a 2-4 player game of airships and exploration” that brings the airship fantasy alive on a tabletop.

3 Fantasy FrontierDesigned to be played in about 90 minutes this will make a great game for the coming winter months.  “Each player controls a unique airship with a crew of pioneers. Players manage the actions of these pioneers each turn in an effort to scout the land, gather resources, construct townships, and even battle it out in aerial combat.”

To create the game world over which the airships fly, players develop “geographic patterns via tile placement, the players will develop a new world each time they play.” Each turn players use their workers to perform seven actions: piloting the airship, R&D, scouting the land, gathering resources, constructing a township, aerial combat, or repairing ship damage.

The game comes with over 200 components and looks to be a very unique experience.  Combine the possible turn strategies with the geomorphic playing surface and players get lots of replayability options. If you want to see some cool game art, components, or an early gameplay video then make sure to check out the project’s Kickstarter page.

Continue reading →