inconsequential ruminations

Last night I went up to deepest darkest Tottenham to see Peter Haslehurst and play Rommel in the Desert. I met his lovely new wife Sue and he treated me to a good meal. So far, so excellent.

Unfortunately the evening came unstuck for me when we started playing. My memory seems to be totally porous when it comes to wargame rules. I finished reading the rules a week ago, but when it came to playing the game my mind went blank. I was able to remember individual rules, but putting them together was impossible. Luckily Peter had soloed the game and had a strong grip on what was involved, so he led me through it. It just goes to show how game rules are greater than the sum of the parts. In my defence, Rommel in the Desert has quite a few unintuitive concepts – especially the supply chain and supply card rules – but the rules work smoothly together and it plays quickly.

We played the Gazala scenario, one of the short tournament scenarios. I was the Germans and Peter the British. Rommel in the Desert has cascading victory conditions: (1) Instant victory – exit units off the opponent’s map edge, (2) Major victory – end the game with twice the units of your opponent, (3) Positional victory – control Tobruk if not besieged, (4) Attritional victory – end the game with more units than your opponents. The positional victory makes Tobruk, in the centre of the map and with good supply, the key. Tobruk is a fortress, doubling the combat value of defenders, and can resupply itself by sea, so it is a tough nut to crack.

Supply is the heart of this game. The effects of losing supply are dramatic and it is easy to cut the lines – as I learnt to my cost.

The British control Tobruk at the start of this scenario and I recklessly invaded it. The problem was that I left my supply lines weak and Peter cut them easily, leaving my advance units in an unsupplied pocket. I could not break his grip and he crushed the remnants. Realising Peter had a positional victory, I had to fall back to avoid a major or instant victory. Luckily for me, Peter did not have the supply to pursue, so the game ended quickly and I avoided major embarrassment.

It is easy to see why Rommel in the Desert has been a classic for 20 years. It plays quickly and it is full of excruciatingly tough decisions. Apparently the EastFront series, by the same designer, use the same system, so I would love to try that although Rommel in the Desert obviously has lots of replay value.
9/10

It was an excellent evening, and I even got home before midnight. I hope for a rematch soon.

There is a new UK Maths Trade.

It looks like my Richard Breese playtest at Essen will be published as Key Harvest. There is a preview at Boardgame News.

Well I certainly have turned my gaming life around. Plenty of new games and ones I have wanted to play for ages.

I traded for a 1986 copy of the Games Workshop version of Cosmic Encounter and last night I finally got to play this classic.

The game shows its age. Special powers are nothing special these days. In fact, I almost find them a bore. For instance, I was not impressed with Colossal Arena. It just felt like a fast little family game that was bloated with artificial complexity. I have not yet tried my copy of Grand National Derby, the simpler original, but I have high hopes for it.

Anyway, Cosmic Encounter is enjoyable enough, we were just put off by the amount of take-that and the imbalance of the special powers. Having said, that the game definitely works and the ganging-up element and alliance choices add plenty of skill.

One guy dismissed it, and I think I will struggle to persuade him again, but I hope I can get it out before too long so I can make a final decision.
6/10 for now.

We played two new-to-us games over the weekend, with Rob and Sara.

• Formula De
  It was good to finally play this famous game. It played pretty much as I expected, but I was not expecting such nice components. The board captures Monaco brilliantly, especially the annoying jet ski poseurs.

BoardGameGeek Image

It is a nice simple game, with some skill and lots of luck. I liked how the rules scale from basic to advanced. As everyone says, the main problem with the game is its length. We played two laps with four players, at an average pace, and it took 1 hour and 50 minutes. This is fine if you are winning, but I was out of it at the end of the first lap. More players would have made this easier, as I could have jockeyed for the back-marker positions. I want to try this with 6+ players. Ave Caesar is shorter and sweeter. Formula De Mini might be a better option for me. 6/10.

• Euphrates & Tigris Card Game
  We learnt this at 10pm, which was probably a mistake. The only real problem with the original boardgame is that it is unintuitive. This is worse in the card game. Explaining this to people who had not played the boardgame was not trivial. This is not as successful a conversion as San Juan, because it is no simpler or shorter – 90% of the effort for 60% of the fun.
  An initial 4/10, but I would like to try it again to be sure.

Several obstacles have got in the way of games playing in the last few months. Most importantly, my games group fizzled out, with only three players of us available at most. I also finished a long project at work and I trained hard for the London Marathon (3h 25m). At any rate, now things have quietened down, I have been playing a few games and the break has done me good.

Naturally I fitted in a few noteworthy games since January:

• Hero Clix – I played this at Bush Bash, a club in Shepherd’s Bush. A group meet every Tuesday to play Heroclix. It is not my kind of game, with basic mechanics and lots of special power combinations, but it was enjoyable enough. 4/10.

• Wizard Kings – We played Surprise Attack. Barbarians have a big advantage as defenders here, as they are so strong nautically. This can be countered by a strong mix of aquatic chaos units for the attacker, but my chaos unit mix does not give the Amazons particularly strong aquatics. Scenario design has always been a problem for Wizard Kings. Even the best, like Chris Farrell’s, can be made average if the unit mix is not right. Now that Wizard Kings is collectible, that will be even more difficult to get right. Demoted to 8/10

• Commands & Colors: Ancients – I enjoy this a lot, but there is not much to say about it. It is nothing revolutionary after playing Memoir ‘44 and Battle Cry, but it feels more historical while still flowing quickly. 8/10

• Mykerinos – I found this bland. After playing two months ago, I can barely remember the mechanics. 4/10

• On the Underground – I can see the similarities to Ticket to Ride, with a similar use of tickets, but it is more abstract and demanding. I read someone’s comment that a “Piccadilly Line” is unbeatable, and that tactic won our game. Even though I’m a Londoner: 5/10

• Die Macher – I finally got to play the Valley Games edition. After seven years of hype, it is hardly surprising that I was a little disappointed. It is probably on a par with Antiquity in complexity, but I did not find it quite as tough to play. This 3rd edition includes a shorter variant where you play fewer regional elections, which I suspect would be subject to the Pareto principle.
  Some of the issue cards are very hard to distinguish. It might be worth substituting some scanned copies from the German editions. Scott Nicholson suggested some player aids that we found useful. 8/10.

• Descent: The Well of Darkness – this is growing on me. I played DM this time and got sadistic pleasure in destroying the adventurers in the second room. If only it played in three hours.
  I think character selection should not be totally random. The adventurers were both relatively weak ranged weapon users, so wilted under beastman pressure. Maybe the players should be able to pick their preferred character blend of ranged, melee and magic users first and then choose randomly among those categories? 8/10.

• Vampire – Typical Knizia. Fast, easy and fun. This one has less replayability than most, but it makes up for that in accessibility. Unfortunately the card art is fugly, which makes it a no-buy for me. It would probably be easy to make my own deck. 6/10.

• Bridgette – I heard about this from Ben Baldanza’s Trick-Taking for Two article. I introduced the basic version to my Bridge-playing friend who normally hates two player games, although he has always enjoyed German Whist. He liked Bridgette similarly and I should be able to persuade him to play this with me more regularly. The bidding and scoring are very interesting and the colons add a lot of strategy. I bought the ugly Mayfair Games version, which includes advanced rules, but it is probably worth trying the basic game for free first.

• Settlers of Catan Card Game – I played this with my brother-in-law, who also dislikes two player games, but again this was a big hit. He loves all Catan games, so I really should have got it sooner. 8/10.

• Cleopatra and the Society of Architects – I visited Steve of the Boardgamer podcast last Saturday and had a good time with his group. They are a very smiley, happy bunch. Cleopatra was better than I thought it would be. It is interactive, easy and fast with lovely components. Like most Days of Wonder games suspect there will not be much replay value, but it is fine for what it is. 7/10.

Steve is trying to organise a public games group around Richmond. Hopefully this will lead to more gaming.

Rick Heli has posted a serious analysis of Jungian personality types for gamers at his website, Spotlight On Games. In this installment, discusses the Guardian type, and mentions me in particular, as I once told him that I did the questionnaire during my MSc course.

I am not sure about this sort of personality analysis. Stereotyping is too easy, but you can extract some useful general principles.