Trashdome: Modern Warfare Games + Light Ameritrash

This week we'll tackle jpat's list of unplayed games. jpat has a large and diverse collection of unplayed games so I've broken his list into 1 Feature Fight and 3 undercards.

Feature Fight: Modern Warfare
World at War: Blood and Bridges
Lock 'n' Load: A Day of Heroes
No Retreat! The Russian Front
Fighting Formations

Undercard: Lighter Ameritrash
The Adventurers and the Temple of Chac
Dungeons and Dragons: Wrath of Ashadralon
Castle Panic
Battleground: Fantasy Warfare

Undercard: Naval Battles
1805: Sea of Glory
Flying Colors
Serpents of the Seas

Undercard: Card games
Pacific Typhoon
Race for the Galaxy

To help us make selections for jpat:

From jpat's TOS page
I have a few broad areas of gaming interest:
* Light- to medium-weight Euros playable in an hour or less, mainly at work over lunch or with nongamer friends/relatives (Thurn and Taxis, San Juan, Ticket to Ride, Samurai)
* Light- to medium-weight "Ameritrash" games or games with direct conflict elements (Imperial, Mare Nostrum, Battlestar Galactica, A Game of Thrones)
* Light- to medium-weight war games (Memoir '44, Combat Commander, Conflict of Heroes; probably Flying Colors, FAB: the Bulge)
* Light- to medium-weight miniatures-related games (HeroScape, Classic BattleTech, Federation Commander)

I'm intrigued by heavy war games but probably wouldn't play them unless goaded or had a committed opponent willing to teach.

Games that I find off-putting tend to be medium-heavy to heavy Euros like Puerto Rico and Die Macher, probably 18xx, probably La Havre, maybe Age of Steam (although I'm tempted). It's not that I find the themes boring but that I don't like the worry about screwing up early on and being committed for hours.

KingPut wrote: Undercard: Naval Battles
1805: Sea of Glory
Flying Colors
Serpents of the Seas

I'll weigh in here:

1805 has some great ideas, and I love the epic scope. You're really playing a full board game here. However, there's a lot there (tough to learn from the rulebook), it seems to be a long play, and as a result it's yet/never to be played.

FC & SotS are two games in the same system. FC is the original, and gives you big boomers: two-hex ships that fire from far away. SotS gives you li'l pea-shooters: one-hex ships that have to pull up close to ping the enemy. SotS *does* come with the duel rules and battle cards... but I don't know if anyone is actually using these, as it's just more rules on top of the game and takes away from the epic multi-ship match-ups, which is why you're playing this game. SotS does have much more and better balanced scenarios, but that's easily fixed by getting the Ship of the Line expansion for FC. FC w/ SotL is one of my true keepers in my wargame collection.

Vote: Flying Colors (w/ Ship of the Line expansion for better scenarios)

World at War: Blood and Bridges is super-easy and good old fashioned smash-mouth wargaming. I love the chit pull.

The Adventurers and the Temple of Chac was The Voice of Ameritrash's game of the year and for good reason. Castle Panic was not, also for good reason. Can't speak to the other two, but Chac is a whole bunch of fun.

S.

Feature Fight: Modern Warfare
World at War: Blood and Bridges - Alternative WWIII in Western Europe is more interesting than yet more WWII.


Undercard: Lighter Ameritrash
Dungeons and Dragons: Wrath of Ashadralon - Part II of the best dungeoncrawlers to come out since Heroquest.


Undercard: Naval Battles
Serpents of the Seas - The dueling rules seem like a good way to get into the system and lead into the bigger ships/scenarios of Flying Colors.

Undercard: Card games
Pacific Typhoon - Has got to be more fun than Race for the Galaxy...

Feature Fight:

A wide range of stuff in there. The subject matter of Day of Heroes interests me ( Black Hawk Down/Mogadishu ) but I've heard very little about the game. No Retreat seems to get a lot of good praise. I've played and enjoyed Fighting Formations, but it doesn't sound like your cup of tea - the bigger scenarios can be LONG, and even the half mappers are probably 3 hours - it's a much more involved game then Combat Commander. I agree with Sag, the chit pull aspect of the WaW stuff and it's smash mouth nature make it the winning pick.

Vote: WaW Blood and Bridges


I have no opinions on the light AT/fantasy stuff.

Naval battles:

1805 is a strategic game , the other two are tactical. I am not into tactical Age of Sail and 1805 is a new subject matter AFAIK. I'd probably go with that.

Card Games.

Pacific Typhoon, no contest. It does need a minimum of four, and is best with 6. Some good trash table talk. RftG is multi player solitaire - see for yourself by downloading the free computer version:

keldon.net/rftg/

Light AT:

Battleground Fantasy Warfare is all the tedium of a miniatures game without any of the fun.

Can't speak of Castle Panic.

Adventurers is good - but not that good. A little too light, too on rails.

D&D: Wrath of Ashardalon is my favorite dungeon crawl game, hands down. Vote: Ashardalon.

Hey, these lists look familiar. ... Oh, yeah, I was supposed to do something to prep for this, wasn't I? Sorry, y'all. I spent 13 hours straight yesterday working on footnotes for my dissertation, and that still leaves me a boatload of stuff to do.

I have played Castle Panic (and Haggis) since I listed my unplayed games. I actually thought CP did a decent job for what it was intended to do, which was be a light young-skewing family game. I wished I'd read about how shite the Haggis cards were before I bent them all in half, but that was pretty decent too and at least gave me the pretense of being able to use my new poker chip set (for bets).

Once this dissertation gets done in mid-April and I finally exit academe after ... well, after a very long time, I should be able to start getting through these, but I'm entertained and intrigued to see what y'all come up with.

Feature Fight: Modern Warfare
Lock 'n' Load: A Day of Heroes

That's the only one I've ever played, so I'm going with that.


Undercard: Lighter Ameritrash
The Adventurers

Toughie. Chac was so much fun and so unique; accessible and easy to learn, great bits. But...it didn't have enough meat to satisfy over the longer term and was relegated to the "kids games". Castle Panic doesn't even belong in the same category as the rest...I'm not even sure it qualifies as Ameritrash. It's good, just not in the same league as Chac or Wrath. Battleground: Fantasy Warfare is a neat little game...it almost can go into the wargame field, though as the tactics can be pretty complex, compared to the other three entries. I'm going with Chac, though, because in the end, it's more accessible than Wrath, and it's more cutthroat, which is a big deal to me. And from the sound of what dude likes, this is more up the alley.


Undercard: Naval Battles
N/A

Don't know any of those. I'm going with Mission Command: Sea, which is fucking brilliant.

Undercard: Card games
Race for the Galaxy

Race. Great fun if you like multiplayer solitaire. Better to play on the PC as a solo venture than with humans and the decks due to the fiddly factor and counting involved, but still a really fun little game.

Fighting Formations was frustrating. It was ~almost~ great but a few things made it excessively slow. Too many little needless phases and checks which just slow the whole thing to a crawl, but enough good parts to make it stand out as a skeleton of a system that might one day be great. Today is not that day.

No Retreat! has just enough parts to make it a fast paced, tense game without sacrificing depth or character. Great game. I'll easily vote for this.

Race for the Galaxy is ok if you like something that is almost multiplayer solitaire. No conflict, but it plays fast and has decent depth. Not my thing, but most people really like it so I'll vote for that.

jpat, first good luck with the dissertation. What's the dissertation on? Focus on that first. Then we start calling you Dr. jpat. Then after you defend schedule a big gaming party. We didn't have a lot of people vote this week because your list wasn't full of the most popular games from FFG or GMT. However, I think it was an interesting group of games. Let's take a look at the final voting:

Feature Fight: Modern Warfare
Winner - World at War: Blood and Bridges = 2 I'd agree with this.
Lock 'n' Load: A Day of Heroes = 1
No Retreat! The Russian Front = 1
Fighting Formations = 0

Undercard: Lighter Ameritrash
The Adventurers and the Temple of Chac = 1
Winner - Dungeons and Dragons: Wrath of Ashadralon = 2 I'd go with either D&D or The Adventures.
Castle Panic
Battleground: Fantasy Warfare

Undercard: Naval Battles
1805: Sea of Glory
Flying Colors = 1
Serpents of the Seas = 1 I'll break the tie and vote Serpents. The battles are smaller so the game is quicker.

Undercard: Card games
Pacific Typhoon = 2
Race for the Galaxy = 2 Tie breaker by a nose
Race of the Galaxy and San Juan are the same game but the cards are easier to read in San Juan and the theme is better in Race for the Galaxy. You mentioned you like playing some light euros euros that are easy teach like San Juan so you should probably give Race for the Galaxy a try. Pacific Typoon is an ok game. I see it as a war gamers filler game. It's the same as Atlantic storm, similar to Naval War or perhaps the kids game Loot. Loot and Naval War are more fun to play. Pacific Typoon and Atlantic Storm are slightly more historical. If you have 4-6 war gamers or history majors sitting around for an hour Pacific Typhoon may be a good choice.