Wargames

Counter Culture: Rounding the Corner

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I’ve long been a proponent of the view that much of the pleasure derived from paper and chit wargaming comes from the physical culture of the games, from interacting with the games rather than actually playing the games themselves. Most wargames are not ready to play out of the box: they require some effort on the part of the players to prepare them, most often punching the die-cut counters out of their trees.

Unclipped Counter. The horror!

While some publishers have made great strides towards the “punchless” countersheet, notably Legion Wargames, whose “Easy Punch” counters pretty much fall out of the trees owing to some extreme die-cutting, the vast majority of counters come with a stubborn attachment to their sprues. Once the counters are punched (preferably, cut out via hobby knife), they still exhibit nibs and bits on the corners—or, in some egregious cases, along the counter sides—where they were held to the counter tree and to each other.

Take our Climb 2 counter here, from Avalon Hill/Multi-Man Publishing’s Advanced Squad Leader. These don’t come out of the Plano very often, so perhaps one could be excused for dropping this counter, with its ragged, uneven edges, onto a game board. And indeed, there is a minor schism in the hobby between those who tend to these nibs, the clippers, and those who do not. I’ve examined the reasons to clip or trim counter corners in the past, and I am unabashedly in the clipping camp, for aesthetic reasons as well as practical reasons.

My tool of choice for years was a trusty hobby knife with easily replaceable blade. I’m minimalist in my trimming, trying to strike a balance between uniform counters and taking off as little of the existing counter as possible. Some people swear by nail clippers (hence, “clipping” counters), but they’ve always taken a bit more off than I prefer, and they strike me as being a bit imprecise. And don’t even get me started on counter clipping jigs. Clipping counters should not be a mass production project, even when one has thousands of counters to process—I like to examine the counters as I clip, particularly for operational level games with much variation between units.

But, after a recent trimming extravaganza to get a game ready for a wargaming convention, I was about ready to join the non-clipping camp. Four hundred counters, four trims per counter. Blah. That’s a lot of knife work, I made some poor trims towards the end, and my fingers cramped all day thereafter. Surely a better method exists?

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Winter Offensive 2014 After Action Report

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Another year already? Seems like just yesterday I was walking the halls of the Bowie, Maryland, Comfort Inn for Winter Offensive, the East Coast’s premier Advanced Squad Leader tournament and all-around game fest. The time between these confabs flies by, or perhaps that’s just a side effect of getting older.

Winter Offensive 2014

As ever, hosts Multi-Man Publishing put on a fine show, with Winter Offensive 2014 seeing a record 134 attendees by Saturday afternoon, eight higher than last year’s record of 126. All three ballrooms were open from Thursday’s start, and the extra initial space was much appreciated. Quite a few people were already there by Thursday evening, more than I had seen in years past. The crowd was mostly the same as ever, with familiar faces in abundance and a smattering of new (to me) players.

I started festivities with a playing of Three Crowns/MMP’s A Victory Complete, an operational-level look at the Tannenberg campaign. Chris Chapman, a long-time gaming compatriot, took the overwhelmed yet qualitatively superior Germans against my overwhelming yet qualitatively inferior Russians. The chit-draw game system felt like a comfortable fit for the situation, and we took the game almost to the end before we called it, with the Germans managing to push the Russians out of Prussia, but not enough for more than a marginal victory. Nice graphics overall on this one, though the corps colors for the Russians were nigh indistinguishable from one another in some circumstances, leading to much confusion in a system dependent upon corps-by-corps activations.

The main event (mine, at least) came on Friday, when I matched up with another of my long-time opponents, Doug Bush, in a playing of SPI’s BAOR, part of the Central Front Series focusing on operational-level battles in a thankfully hypothetical WWIII. I had the doughty British Army of the Rhine, holding the Weser River with considerable help from the Belgians and West Germans, while Doug drove the first and second Soviet echelons against my thin line. Neither of us had played the series before, but we soon got the hang of the rather unorthodox attack-as-movement system and the tracking of units’ gradual-then-sudden deterioration via friction points. By the end of the day—we put in a good twelve hours—the Soviets had achieved a substantial victory, with several more turns (and another echelon) to go. They hadn’t breached the Weser, though, so I’ll chalk up a moral victory.

BAOR

The system plays smoothly, particularly for the highly mobile contemporary forces involved. I don’t know that I’ll break this one out again anytime soon, but I’m quite pleased to have finally gotten this old gem (from 1981) off the shelf and onto the table.

For me, this Winter Offensive will probably be remembered as the year I finally broke down and played ASL again, for the first time in years and years. Regular gaming chum Mike Vogt graciously faced off against me and my absurdly dusty rule book in an all-day Saturday scenario, the Chas Smith-designed “The Shan Capital,” featuring Chinese GMD troops holding a town against Thai (!) forces in 1942 Burma. Gotta play something like that, no question, so I took the plunge back into the tactical game system. Mike held on for the victory with a very cagey fighting withdrawal, limiting me to two of the four required victory buildings by scenario’s end. I even managed a Thai hero creation. That’s a feather in any gamer’s hat.

It was good to get some ASL under my belt again. I might have to start playing a bit more—there’s a reason the system is going strong almost thirty years after its release.

No Winter Offensive would be complete without some late-night gaming. I played in fewer than usual this year, only managing one play of Sierra Madre’s Pax Porfiriana, my current card game of choice, and one of FFG’s Battlestar Galactica, a game that has become something of a cult favorite with my gaming crowd. The humans lost in the latter, coming a single jump away from reaching Kobol, but the toasters prevailed, as is their metallic wont.

My thanks to the team at MMP for another great three days of gaming. Now if only I could get three days of sleep to compensate.

Rolling the Dice on Kickstarter

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I’ve backed enough Kickstarter projects by now to fully understand that it’s not really a “pre-order” site. You’re supporting a concept, a product, or an idea, and hopefully said concept, product, or idea comes to fruition. As a wiser person than I once said, “You pays your money and you takes your chances.”

Indeed, of all the Kickstarter projects I’ve backed, only two have, thus far, delivered, though I’m not worried quite yet. I knew the lead times would be long, and my investment is hardly large. I received my most recent Kickstarter backer rewards just last week, a set of four Precision Machined Dice, and the results are quite stunning.

Precision Machined Dice

These anodized aluminum dice were machined from solid blocks of aluminum and have significant heft (and sharp corners). They’re not really practical for actually rolling, but they make lovely display pieces. I consider them propitiations to whatever forces control the flow of luck in the universe.

Thankfully, though, the creator of these dice, Amber Rix, has launched another Kickstarter project for Precision Machined Metal Gaming Dice, a little smaller (at either 16mm or ½”) than the casino sized dice from the original project and with rounded edges. As with the original project, they will be available in a variety of metals and, for the aluminum, a variety of colors. Plus, looks like you could roll them without damaging a table, though you’d still likely put your glass dice cup at risk. The creator of these projects has also mooted the possibility of metal polyhedrons as a future Kickstarter project. Yes, please!

Because at a certain point in every gamer’s life, you have to ask: Why roll plastic?

A Taste of 1989 at Labyrinth

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This past weekend, I had the pleasure of participating in a demo session of GMT‘s recently released 1989: The Dawn of Freedom, hosted by one of the co-designers, Jason Matthews. Held at the finest game store in Washington, DC (and indeed, the entire metro region), Labyrinth Games and Puzzles, as part of their “A Taste of…” series of game demos, the event filled the store’s back gaming space with players eager to recreate the struggle for democratic change in the countries of Eastern Europe during the tumultuous late ’80s.

Jason Matthews provided a nice overview of card driven games in general, spoke to his design process and the challenges of creating (and publishing) innovative designs in an increasingly crowdfunded market, and also worked through the rules for the game. It’s always a pleasure to be able to ask rules questions of the person who designed them.

Using a similar card-driven armature as Twilight Struggle, which Jason Matthews also co-designed, 1989 pits two players in the roles of Communists—attempting to keep control of the social and political structures of Poland, East Germany, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Czechoslovakia—and Democrats, striving to gain control of the same. Players familiar with Twilight Struggle can jump right in, as the basic dilemma of using cards for either operations (to take actions on the map representing efforts to gain or wrest control) or events (representing significant moments from history) remains in place.

1989 The Dawn of Freedom via of Labyrinth Games and Puzzles

New to the system, the Power Struggle sub-game comes into play when overall control of a country must be assessed due to play of a Scoring Card. The Power Struggle—essentially a suit matching contest using cards apportioned via relative control of the country—adds quite a bit of uncertainty into what was, in Twilight Struggle, a very cut-and-dry calculation. You can go into the Power Struggle with an edge in country control and leave with no control at all. Some might find that variability unsettling, but I like what it adds to the game. There are no guaranteed victory points in this game.

As with most event-based card driven games, once you know the events and their placement in the game’s “storyboard,” much of the sense of wonder and discovery vanishes; I’ve played Twilight Struggle enough times to know which cards open me up to late game traps if I play them and which cards are mandatory plays as soon as they appear in my hand, certainly a strategic benefit, but I’ve also lost the thrill of watching the history unfold via the cards. While I don’t think 1989 will ultimately escape that fate (and it’s not a terrible one, for the basic game play is still quite satisfying), it’s nice to have another game in this vein where the gameplay is somewhat seat-of-the-pants, not knowing how one action will reverberate into another, as ultimately I game for wonder as much as winning.

My thanks to Jason Matthews and the always awesome crew at Labyrinth for hosting this demo session. It prompted me to pick up a copy of 1989, which I’m sure will see a fair bit of play.

(Picture via Labyrinth Games and Puzzles)

Winter Offensive 2013 After Action Report

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Sure, it may have been seventy degrees outside, but this past weekend in Bowie, Maryland, it was Winter Offensive 2013 inside, as Multi-Man Publishing‘s annual Advanced Squad Leader tournament and all-around gamefest took place.

A view from the Winter Offensive '13 trenches

Attendance at the East Coast’s premier ASL event initially seemed a bit off from years past (though no complaints from a table-space perspective), perhaps owing to the slightly changed date. Typically, Winter Offensive is held over Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend, but the proximity of the Presidential Inauguration put paid to those plans this year. Saturday, however, saw a major influx of gamers, bringing the total up to 126 over the course of the event, pipping 2012’s 125 gamers.

The old gang was all in attendance, and, as has become my wont, I managed to play a total of zero games of ASL, though my resistance weakened somewhat when I saw a beautiful scenario featuring bicycle-mounted Japanese troops supported by some of the most obscure tankettes in the game in the Phillipines facing U.S. Army cavalry. Early war, PTO, junky tanks, and bicycles? Yes, please! Time to dust off the ol’ rulebook, I think.

GMT's Bloody AprilI managed to game aplenty, though. After spending much of Thursday catching up with people, I spent the vast majority of Friday playing a huge scenario from GMT’s Bloody April, a World War One grand tactical air game, with my Germans (including von Richtofen himself) facing off against Doug Bush’s British pilots.

Though the Germans tallied far more British flights shot down (the Baron himself had four kills), the Brits were able to accomplish more than enough of their objectives to see them win handily. The system is nice, though a bit cumbersome given the need to track nearly ten variables per flight counter on the map. Still, by the end of fifty turns, we had the climbing, diving, and dogfighting down pat.

Friday evening was given over to GMT’s Twilight Struggle against Chris Chapman, who took the Soviets against my Americans in a replay of the Cold War. Honors were even until the mid-war phase, at which point the Soviets scored quite a few regions. With a +16 VP lead, Chris seemed in control, so I started to play around with DEFCON, but the gamble led to an unfortunate end for the planet when the Soviets were able to push DEFCON to zero owing to my own card play. A rematch has been demanded!

Far too bright and early on Saturday, I faced off against Mike Vogt in MMP’s No Question of Surrender, taking the Italians as they besieged the Free French in their desert fort. This was my first experience with MMP’s Grand Tactical System, a company level, chit-activation wargame. While I like the underlying system—it’s simple to learn but difficult to get all the parts working synergistically—I was underwhelmed by the tactical situation portrayed. The Italians pretty much just crashed like weak waves against the French fort, and Mike was probably getting tired of rolling so much opportunity fire against them. Still, it was nice to see the rules in action, and always a pleasure to match wits with Mike.

By Saturday afternoon, a bit of heavy-gaming fatigue had started to set in, so lighter fare became the norm, and I played through two games of FFG’s Battlestar Galactica. Much to my dismay, I was never a Cylon traitor, though I was accused of such in both games (and even sent to the brig once). The Cylons won the first game without much fuss, but the second saw cagier play by the humans, leading to a narrow escape from the toasters. I’d gladly play this one again, but you need a good-natured group for it—the potential (nay, necessity) for offense in this one requires playing against gamers who enjoy gaming more than they enjoy winning.

Winter Offensive always leaves me drained in the aftermath, but for three days of gaming, I’m ready to put it on the calendar for next year. After I catch up on my sleep, that is.

Rumble in the Jungle: MMP’s Angola

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After years of development, Multi-Man Publishing‘s re-make of the Ragnar Brothers‘ Angola has finally arrived, and in fine form.

A meeting of monster columns

This area-move wargame on the Angolan Civil War in the mid-1970s is designed for four players, split into alliances of two players each (one side controlling the FNLA and UNITA forces, the other the FAPLA and MPLA forces that waged war through the Angolan countryside). The game can conceivably be played with fewer than four, but the game strives to model the command-control failures of the various forces and the difficulty they had in coordinating their actions, a difficulty the game emulates in part by prohibiting secret planning. You either tell your partner (and your opponents) that you’re moving to particular town or you don’t say a thing and hope he/she figures it out by the time your forces have arrived. Fewer players means fewer opportunities to mess up a grand sweeping plan, and grand sweeping failures were part of this conflict and an important aspect of the game.

I had the pleasure of playing a four-player session of Angola recently at that finest of local game stores, Labyrinth, on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. Michael Vogt (UNITA) and I (FNLA) squared off against Pablo Garcia-Silva (MPLA) and Doug Bush (FAPLA) in Labyrinth’s gaming area for a stolen Friday afternoon of fun.

None of us had played this game, originally released in 1988, before, but we’re all grizzled wargaming vets, so we forged ahead full speed. Much of the game is familiar wargame stuff, though the enforced fog-of-war rules and a nifty odds determination system meant that attacks often went in at 1:2 ratios, an almost unheard of occurrence in most games. The game system really wants each player to push, and push hard, even at low odds. The card-driven movement system (with only limited opportunities to move units each turns) forces one to use units whenever possible, and a limited countermix and the subsequent loss of reinforcements if you don’t sufficient counters in your pool helps encourage an attacking mindset. Smoke ’em if you’ve got ’em, if you will.

Pablo and Doug’s Cuban-backed forces made good gains early on, and the game design self-balances by giving the side that loses territory the opportunity to gain extra forces from their foreign backers (Zaire and South Africa, for UNITA and FNLA).

The siege of Lobito

After a few bad turns, you’ve got a force to be reckoned with, and Michael and I had a few bad turns, enabling us to push back in style. The UNITA stacks coming out of South Africa were monstrous and inflicted some real damage.

By the time we called the game, both sides were tied and looking quite equally matched, force-wise (though Doug did have a giant air force that dwarfed the rest of us). But because of the early losses, the UNITA/FNLA alliance was in a precarious position—another bad turn could have seen the foreign powers remove all aid. The risk/reward balance in the game is quite finely crafted in that respect: you can’t play rope-a-dope until you have a giant army, because you’ll risk losing your sponsors and will probably be too far behind on points (representing accumulated political victories caused by territorial gains).

Combining ease of play (though with much tactical depth) and a wild random set-up feature, Angola is going to be making the rounds at game conventions for years to come. I foresee quite a few late night four-player sessions of this one at Winter Offensive.

My thanks to the crew at Labyrinth for their gracious hosting and to Pablo, Doug, and Michael for a great afternoon of gaming.