November update
Friday, December 2nd, 2005Some of the other stuff I’ve been up to over the last few weeks:
Wizard Kings
We played dwarves and orcs on the Revolt scenario from Chris Farrell’s website using the v1.6 rules which I think was a mistake. I have not analysed it, but this ruleset seems to reduce the punch of attackers, making it impossible for the convicts to make headway in this scenario, as there is so little room on a single map. I will stick to v1.5 in future, especially on Chris’ maps, which are the only way I want to play the game anyway.
Santiago
This went down very well with the full complement of five players. I am not entirely sure it is a classic, as there are so many finely tuned auction games out there. Time will tell, but it is certainly very good.
San Juan
Still excellent. An inexperienced gamer among us struggled with the concepts quite a bit. I can see how it would be disconcerting for a newbie.
Age of Steam France Expansion
John Bohrer recently recommended this as a gentle introductory map, as you cannot go bust, but I disagree. With four players things still managed to get pretty cutthroat in a rush to connect Paris with the south, and one guy would have gone bust with the regular rules. Rather than being freed to go home, he was sentenced to another 45 minutes of waiting around for the game to end. It is a tough choice. Some people might prefer to be eliminated and save time, but others would prefer to stay in the game anyway.
Target: Arnhem
I have now played this three times, and enjoyed it very much every time. The Allies have not won with a regular historical setup and I am starting to think it would be very difficult for that to happen. Next time I play the allies I will try putting two sets of paras north of the Rhine and one next to Nijmegen. XXX Corps will struggle more in the early game, but at least the paras will have a chance of holding out until they can be relieved. Getting over the final bridge is just too hard without a bridgehead.
I really need to find another game at this level, as I now have a very pleasant partner for light wargames. The main problem is keeping the duration down as T:A takes us 3 hours and that is the absolute limit for us right now. Any suggestions? Here are my current thoughts:
The last two are too long and are only in because they are in Chris’ Introductory Wargame List and because my new wargaming partner is Dutch.
Update
I should have emphasised that we are ideally after a Western Front WWII game, probably Battle of the Bulge or D-Day.
Autumn Mist might be a contender, but it does not have a single rating at the Geek.