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14 Jun 2019 11:54 - 14 Jun 2019 11:59 #298384 by barrowdown
I've played four solo games of Red Winter over the past two days. The game covers the Battle of Tolvajärvi during the Winter War. My first two games were just of the tutorial scenario (17.17 Tutorial: First Folly), which is just meant to teach the basic concepts. Both the Soviets and the Finns won one as I figured out how the game worked.

My next play was First Day (17.2) with the Soviets winning 22 - 15. The Finns held out for a while at the hotel by cycling battalions as they fell back to delay the Soviet advance. The Soviets eventually were able to overwhelm the hotel, gravel pit and key bridge through weight of numbers, but the Finns maintained a lock on Tolvajärvi and managed to keep a foothold on Kotisaari Island and deny the Soviets points there. Unfortunately for the Finns, they rolled terribly throughout the game for recovery and so the units in Tolvajärvi were still only 1/3 recovered, which awarded the Soviets six points.

Last daylight turn, where the Soviets have not yet taken the bridge:


My final play was of The Battle for Hirvasvaara (17.10) with the Finns winning 8-2. They took a lot of damage on the north front as 3/718 fought a pretty good delaying action to hold off ErP9 and eventually eliminate the only company the Soviets could claim as a casualty. They also managed to escape two units off the map to the south before JR16 began to annihilate everything in that direction before finally taking Hirvasvaara on the last Finnish turn with assistance from ErP9. The Soviets attempted a counterattack, but failed miserably leaving the Finns in control of the VP hex.

End game:


So far I have been enjoying Red Winter. The game is very smooth with some elegant mechanics to handle a lot of the oddness of the fight. I have only played one night turn, so I still have a lot to learn on properly using the Finns major advantages. These were all single day scenarios so I also do not have a feel for how the entire battlefield shifts overtime to represent the major movements and the declining Soviet power. I will probably next try the alternate setup of the Battle of Hirvasvaara (17.11) that shrinks the Soviets down to two battalions, but gives them more points (and the Finns less) for controlling the village. After that, I will probably try some of the simpler scenarios with armor to get a feel for how they work with their combat immunity and extremely limited mobility.
Last edit: 14 Jun 2019 11:59 by barrowdown.
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15 Jun 2019 03:12 #298420 by Scott_F
A few new games to talk about and revisiting a few older games.

I've had 2 games of God's War now, the successor to Cthulhu Wars. I really like this game and so far it does feel different enough from CW to justify owning it. Instead of spellbooks with requirements that must be met in order to win, the heroquests in GW aren't required and you probably won't have all of them every game. I'm not pushed to go through a checklist every turn of shit I need to do. Summoning your big monsters doesn't destroy your entire turn either, and thats great. Those turns in CW are very not fun and in GW you can summon them and still do something cool this turn. The runes are meh, random injections of chaos into a game that doesn't need a whole lot given how different all the factions act. And the ending mechanic, the Great Compromise, has pissed off everyone that I've played the game with. The player generating the most power and likely doing the best has the opportunity to sacrifice half their power in order to give out a small amount of VPs to the table, including themselves. A friend said that this is a game where giant gods should fight to the death to end the game and I agree.

Forbidden Stars. I owned this and sold it about a year ago after playing it maybe 6-7 times. I wanted to like it but it felt like a chore at times to push through. Since selling it I've had little regret but thought I'd try it again. There are so many mechanics in this game that are excellent. VPs are based on controlling a single location for one turn and are scattered around the board, forcing you to constantly move and not turtle. Planets themselves have small stacking limits, sometimes as low as 1, making ownership of the planet guaranteed to change. The tech tree is straightforward and tied to owning city structures so you do have motivation to hold some territory and not vacate a spot immediately. The factions feel pretty different in play, some are better at space combat while others can outlast anyone in a fight. And this is the only dudes on a map game I would play with 2 players, other than Star Wars Rebellion and thats not entirely a dudes on a map game.

But dear god the negatives are just as bad. 3 whole fucking rounds of combat where you play a card, resolve up to 2 different text effects on the card in addition to adding the icons on the cards, and possibly adding more dice makes the whole thing burdensome if you are in the fight. If you aren't in the fight then you have permission to play a short game on your phone. Even worse there is no overrun rules since at least 50% of the fights involve a massive group of 3-4 units vs a single defender who somehow doesn't die until the third round of combat. The warp storms, artificial barriers on movement, can and will block you moving to a neighboring sector for multiple turns and are extremely frustrating. And the limitation on 4 orders per turn when moving further than a single system requires nobody fucking with your plans and having a movement order limited to a single battle feels so...limiting. For instance, I had my best ship and a couple smaller ships ready to move to an adjacent space and act as a bridge for my land troops later in the turn. Another player had an event card saved that let him rout any enemy, thereby removing it from any future battles. My whole turn hinged on holding the space and moving troops into it and because my large ship was routed I had no chance of holding the space, making my entire turn was wasted.

There are some great ideas in Forbidden Stars, but I'm still happy I don't own it.

El Grande. I've played this maybe three times, the owner played it a bunch, and another person had played it maybe a decade ago. Two other players were brand new. The game was excellent and everyone agreed we would gladly play it again. Nothing further to say on a game this old and thats been covered so much, but it is still a fun experience even though it lacks minis.

Last up is Indonesia. I'll give an aside here and say I don't normally like econ games because its a little too close to work and real life for me and crunching investment numbers doesn't feel like fun. But damn this game was cool. I'm ok with Food Chain Magnate but don't love it for reference. I don't have a game experience I can compare to Indonesia's strange rules for mergers and forced economic expansion. It does force you to constantly think about ROI when potentially bidding on companies but there is so much more to the strategy. Players can only own so many companies, so when companies merge it potentially may free up open spots in addition to transferring a pile of cash currently for the right to earn future cash. If that company later isn't proposed for a merger. Turn order becomes very important quickly and is decided the best way possible, by auction. You can ship your goods to cities before someone else does, thereby filling demand and leaving them with completely useless goods. Or you can own ships that connect to distant cities and owners must pay you more of the profit to deliver farther because of the key rule that all goods produced must be sold, even if at a lower profit or a complete loss. I liked this game so much that I immediately considered buying it even though we ended at 11pm on a saturday and I had a pounding headache, either from doing too much math or from just staying up late. It isn't in print right now as it is a pain in the ass Splotter game, and some of the components in the second edition were erroneously printed like 10x as big as they were requested to so they don't fit well on the board. But a very unique interactive game that I'm looking forward to play again.

Aside. The heavy euro game category makes me depressed. I recently ran in to some people that listed out games they enjoy playing as I am trying to find people interested in summoning evil gods or being raging vikings or wizards in a university or the Bene Gesserit or even playing El Grande or Tigris & Euphrates. Favorites listed in the medium/heavy euro category included Troyes, the Colonists, Anachrony, Lorenzo il Magnifico. I've given 3 of those a chance and hated them all, yet that category of low interaction/theme game continues to churn out new titles and seems like the default of what strategy games are defined as. Maybe with the upcoming Dune reprint everyone will see how amazing it is when theme, mechanics, and player interaction are tied together in a game.
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15 Jun 2019 09:58 #298425 by Sagrilarus

barrowdown wrote: I've played four solo games of Red Winter over the past two days. The game covers the Battle of Tolvajärvi during the Winter War. My first two games were just of the tutorial scenario (17.17 Tutorial: First Folly), which is just meant to teach the basic concepts. Both the Soviets and the Finns won one as I figured out how the game worked.

My next play was First Day (17.2) with the Soviets winning 22 - 15. The Finns held out for a while at the hotel by cycling battalions as they fell back to delay the Soviet advance. The Soviets eventually were able to overwhelm the hotel, gravel pit and key bridge through weight of numbers, but the Finns maintained a lock on Tolvajärvi and managed to keep a foothold on Kotisaari Island and deny the Soviets points there. Unfortunately for the Finns, they rolled terribly throughout the game for recovery and so the units in Tolvajärvi were still only 1/3 recovered, which awarded the Soviets six points.

Last daylight turn, where the Soviets have not yet taken the bridge:



My final play was of The Battle for Hirvasvaara (17.10) with the Finns winning 8-2. They took a lot of damage on the north front as 3/718 fought a pretty good delaying action to hold off ErP9 and eventually eliminate the only company the Soviets could claim as a casualty. They also managed to escape two units off the map to the south before JR16 began to annihilate everything in that direction before finally taking Hirvasvaara on the last Finnish turn with assistance from ErP9. The Soviets attempted a counterattack, but failed miserably leaving the Finns in control of the VP hex.

End game:


So far I have been enjoying Red Winter. The game is very smooth with some elegant mechanics to handle a lot of the oddness of the fight. I have only played one night turn, so I still have a lot to learn on properly using the Finns major advantages. These were all single day scenarios so I also do not have a feel for how the entire battlefield shifts overtime to represent the major movements and the declining Soviet power. I will probably next try the alternate setup of the Battle of Hirvasvaara (17.11) that shrinks the Soviets down to two battalions, but gives them more points (and the Finns less) for controlling the village. After that, I will probably try some of the simpler scenarios with armor to get a feel for how they work with their combat immunity and extremely limited mobility.


Dynamite content. Turn this into a blog post please. Cut and paste is sufficient.
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15 Jun 2019 10:04 #298426 by Sagrilarus

Vysetron wrote: So. Champions of Hara. Been playing it lately. It confuses me. As a result my thoughts are unorganized.

It says it's an adventure game, but I don't think it follows a single genre convention. The default game mode is just 2-4 players romping around the map for about an hour killing monsters and each other to fill some meters, then returning home before anyone else. The core is a rather clever hand management mechanism where cards played from the hand rotate and become an"on-board" version with a similar but different effect, for use on a future turn. It makes turns really snappy, but there's still plenty of choices in where you go and how you get there.

What's weird is when it pulls a reverse-Zimby Mojo, because when the game winning character makes one of two wishes that backfires somehow. This triggers a scenario in the back of the rulebook that's usually a co-op against a big corrupted baddie. That's the true ending. There are also solo scenarios, though so far I haven't been impressed with those.

The game is mechanically very solid and straightforward to play, but I don't get it yet. It's so alien to anything I know structurally. You play a weird skirmish game that's pretty fun, then switch gears to a co-op scenario with widely varied rules for the finale? I mentioned Zimby Mojo earlier which does the reverse, but it works in ZM because you know what's going to happen as soon as everyone kills the king. Here it can be any of the character scenarios, and there's two options depending on who wins, and the scenarios could have all sorts of win conditions, and most confusingly your meters RESET immediately after the first half. You're functionally back at level 1. It just feels tacked on, and I feel like the game is better played if you just pick a scenario if you want a co-op or just play the competitive game and end it there.

I appreciate Greenbrier's commitment to weird shit. Grimslingers was similarly wonky. This is a lot smoother, but I'm still not quite there yet with Hara.


This too. The game deserves its own space for discussion.

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15 Jun 2019 10:07 #298427 by Sagrilarus
Let's make a general rule -- if you're typing more than 100 words on a game make it a blog entry.
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15 Jun 2019 12:39 - 15 Jun 2019 13:07 #298437 by ubarose

Sagrilarus wrote: Let's make a general rule -- if you're typing more than 100 words on a game make it a blog entry.


This, exactly.

Also, if you have your own blog or site, you may include a link in your blog entries back to your own blog in exchange for a link on your blog or site back to us.
Last edit: 15 Jun 2019 13:07 by ubarose.

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15 Jun 2019 22:32 #298452 by Vysetron
The current post is a mess because I don't have solid thoughts on the game right now, so I'm not going to post it as-is. Once I form some coherent opinions I'll mash them all together in blog form.
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15 Jun 2019 23:05 #298453 by Gary Sax
Vysetron, your post reminds me of that weird mild, gamey, degenerate state that a BSG game could get into. You could guess there are no cylons in the first stage in the 5 or 6 player game and end up in this really weird, gamey state where the humans themselves don't want to do too well because of the probability they'll draw Cylon for the 2nd half. Which is just an obtuse, counterintuitive mindset to be in which isn't great.
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16 Jun 2019 00:35 #298454 by Vysetron
Fortunately it's not that bad. When you're playing the competitive game you definitely want to try your best, and when you're working together you're 100% on the same team. But the two games are just that: two different games that the rulebook says are meant to be played one after the other. It's jarring.
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16 Jun 2019 07:32 - 16 Jun 2019 07:40 #298458 by Ah_Pook

Ah_Pook wrote: Played a pretty cool game last night called Champions of Hara. It felt a lot like Mage Knight Jr. Use your hand of cards to move around a map and fight Monsters and whatnot, level up to get more cards, etc. 2 main cool things: 1) the art was really really good, in a weird fantasy comic book style that really struck me and 2) the card cycling between your hand and the table was a neat system that was just fun to play around with. Each card has two effects, a hand effect and a table effect. When it's in your hand you play it for the hand effect and it goes on the table. In a later turn you play the same card off the table for the table effect, and it cycles back to your hand next turn. This lets you plan stuff out in a fun way. Not sure I need to run out and buy a copy, but I would definitely play it again.


Quoting relevant Champions of Hara impressions. We only played the basic competitive scenario, so I can't comment on the weird split thing. It was totally fine and id play it again, but I wasnt left frothing with anticipation to play it again. It's not an adventure game at all though I don't think. Each turn is a fun little tactical puzzle of using your cards most effectively, and setting yourself up for your next turn using the table/hand card system (which is far and away the coolest thing in the game).
Last edit: 16 Jun 2019 07:40 by Ah_Pook.
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16 Jun 2019 14:17 #298468 by Jexik
Played a couple games of Root on Thursday. Tried out the Woodland Alliance. I always tried to stay on the Vagabond's good side, but that probably helped him win. In game 2 I crafted Tea on turn 1 or 2 for his Ranger, and that amplified his actions quite a bit as he murdered both the birds and cats, and traded me cards for lots of points.
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16 Jun 2019 16:00 - 16 Jun 2019 18:59 #298470 by RobertB
What I played at Origins:

Spirit Island - I went down by myself, and ended up wandering the Board Room like a lost puppy. Everyone I knew was right in the middle of games already, and someone was looking for players for this. It turns out that it's a co-op. Well, hell. Although I like Pandemic, co-ops aren't usually my thing. I think if you liked co-ops, with extremely variable player powers, you'd like it.

Grand Austria Hotel - I saw it from across the hall, and I had thought I was getting into a game of AuZtralia. Oops. It turned out to be one of those "Turn cubes into points" sort of games that some folks make fun of around here. But I don't mind playing those, and it wasn't a horrible game. It plays kind of like Castles of Burgundy crossed with Stone Age, maybe. It looks like the sort of thing my family gamers might play, but I wouldn't buy it. Got second, which wasn't bad for a rank beginner.

Power Grid - that one I wandered into. It was 5 players, three new, one gentleman who had played a few times a while back, and me. Every time I play it, I think, "I should play this more often."

Lords of Vegas - the Board Room's "Looking for players" cone system* worked as designed, and I dragged another player I knew into it. Shitty dice luck cost me a big casino the turn before the game ended. Another one I should play more often.

Wingspan - this is one I was interested in, but I can't find it because Stonemeier Games has printed about 10 copies of it. You have to think a little bit, the birds are pretty, and it plays fast. This one would also be a good one for the family.

Civilization: A New Dawn - I roped a couple of folks I knew into it, with the understanding that they would have to leave in two hours. They had never played before, but what the heck; eternal optimist, that's me. We were getting close to the end, but they called time. One wasn't all that thrilled with the game, but the other got it.

Terraforming Mars - I left my copy at home that day, because I don't really like lugging a 50-lb bag of games around with me. But there are folks that do like it, and I got into TM with a person who had brought all the expansions. I thought I had a chance, but one player had way too many cards with resources and got 60 points from them. Ouch.

Saturday I went with my brother and nephew, so I got to expand my horizons a little.

Overlords of Infamy - with that title, Poe's Law was in full effect. It was actually a game with a little strategy, a little humor, and a relatively short playing time. I ended up buying a copy. Maybe the family gamers will like it.

Cthulhu Wars - I'm going to count this, although it was just a demo. I get why this is so popular, even though it costs an arm and a leg. My brother bought a copy, because he's on crack. I bought the Tcho-Tcho expansion, just so I could make the lady at the booth wince when I called it, "Choo-choo".

Too Many Bones - my brother also ended up buying a copy of this. It's a bit pricey, but it ain't my money. I thought it did a good job of being a little different than the D&DAS-style of DM-less RPG. Dice represent everything in the game that isn't a card or a big poker chip. It took a while to get the hang of the mechanics, but once you get the hang of it, it moves pretty smoothly.

* LFP cone system - person looking for players puts the box lid on a big cardboard paper cone.
Last edit: 16 Jun 2019 18:59 by RobertB.
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19 Jun 2019 15:37 #298641 by mads b.
A couple of weeks ago I spend the weekend in a summer house with some friends just to play games.

Fire and Axe is a game I’m never psyched about playing, but it always delivers. Always. In the game you are Vikings vying to raid, traid and settle all over Europe. But you also want to collect sagas by, for instance, raiding in a specific port or trading in three others. And the cool thing is that the player who fulfills the last requirement gets the card, so you can hope to piggyback on someone else’s achievements. The game is also amazingly well balanced between the four different roads to points (raid, trade, settle or sagas), and I finished second just two points behind number one.

The next day we played Starcraft. This is one of my all time favourite games, but while it was good, it wasn’t perfect. Several of the players opted to not have their special victory condition, and that is really a mistake. One of the things that make Starcraft so great is that all players (in the base game) have a chance of winning, but since victory points are the tie breaker, you still want to get them. So next time I think I will house rule that all players much choose the strategy card that give them the special victory option. But I’m also thinking that maybe I’m sort of done with Starcraft. While it’s great and gorgeous, it’s also extremely fiddly. Combat works great, the map is great and most of the units are too. But especially with the expansion there are too many units you’ll never build. And the resource system is also stupidly complex with little workers you place on cards and you always have to remember to save money for a transport and whatnot. It really needs to be streamlined, but Forbidden Stars didn’t deliver on that part.

At night we wanted something shorter and went for Black Orchestra. It was a brilliant game. In the game you take the role as Nazis trying to assassinate Hitler up to or during the war. Basically you run around Germany and try to not rouse a lot of suspicion while building up a plot by finding the correct items and matching cards. Then, when you’re ready, you roll a fistful of dice and either succeed, fail or get discovered. We tried to kill him with a plane bomb, a gunman in the bunker during the last days of the war and finally with a piece of poisoned pie. We failed all the times, but every dice roll was super intense. And while we were never downright discovered, every single time we tried a plot, the next event card happened to be a gestapo raid. They were definitely on to us. I have soloed the game once before and was somewhat underwhelmed, but I’m definitely going to play this with a group once more.

The next day we finished with Civilization (the one by Kevin Wilson) with all the expansions. I’ve never been particularly fond of the base game, but with all the expansions it’s pretty damn good. Yes, it’s far too big and convoluted, but the expansions give you the option to go for several kinds of victory at the same time, which is great. I still miss stuff to fight over on the board since going for another player seems to deadlock you a lot of the times. And there’s also, I think, too much going on in each player’s play area rather than on the board, which means that a player can suddenly be winning without anyone else having noticed.

Finally, as a filler during the weekend we played a (small) grand tour of Flamme Rouge. We were five players, so we played with the breakaway rules which make the beginning of the stage much more dynamic. Also, when playing a tour, you get points for winning stages and for your overall placement (time), but you also retain some of your exhaustion. This led to epic stories as the riders in front of the game after the first two stages were left far behind in the third and had to hobble their way to the finish line. It’s a great game, and I very much appreciate how more and more nuances and strategies appear as I play the game more (which isn’t much). I had to leave before we finished the tour, but I was dead last, so that was okay.
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19 Jun 2019 21:53 - 19 Jun 2019 21:53 #298655 by Sevej
So, after, maybe more than a year, I actually play a board game. Solo, yes, but an actual play.

I'm home alone, so I set up a table and a scenario of Band of Brothers on it. It's a scenario that happens after Salerno landings, and the US is attacked by Germans on halftracks and some tanks. I'm still not sure how the US can do anything.

On the other hand, le-learning the game is mostly a breeze. For what it covers, it's really simple. However, the part that is NOT a breeze is pretty annoying.

I leave it up when I go to sleep and work.
Last edit: 19 Jun 2019 21:53 by Sevej.

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20 Jun 2019 10:51 - 20 Jun 2019 11:05 #298684 by Ah_Pook
Tried out a really fun game called Show Manager last night. It's from 96, but u had never heard of it. Basically youre drafting cards from a face up conveyor belt to play sets for points. You either have to take a card or score a set every round. Each player will score 4 sets in the game, and they are sets of 3-6 cards. The trick is once your hand is 6 cards you can no longer score the set of 3. Once your hand is 7 you can no longer score the set of 4 etc
So you are forced to score something eventually, no matter how bad it is. You can't just keep taking cards to get actually good sets. The other trick is your money is super limited, and you will be spending it to buy cards. Once you run out of money your options are either take the free card every round (probably awful), or mortgage a previously scored set for up to $10, making it worth up to 10 less in the final scoring. That's pretty much the game. It's a real kick in the teeth, in a fun way. If you play with less than 6 you put dummy scores out for each category, and in our game no one beat the dummies 0_0
Last edit: 20 Jun 2019 11:05 by Ah_Pook.
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