Back in misty days of my youth (1990) I purchased a copy of Space Crusade from MB/GamesWorshop. It was a simple to play WH40K game in board game format. As these games go it was pretty darned good. I played quite a few games of it back then, oh those glorius days.
Then life moved on and the game was played less and was stuck in the loft for a few years.
Then life moved on again and a time came when I was home and living on the road. I saw this coming and started giving away my stuff, including all of the games I'd collected over the years, and yes Space Crusade was one of them.
Then life moved on and now I'm back inside a brick and mortar swelling and able to trawl the local charity shops looking for cheap games.
And what did I just find? Well you've guessed it, Space Crusade, for a mere £2.50 I've bought a copy of the game I used to love. I was astounded to find the game in the shop, further astounded to find it in excellent condition and EVEN more astounded to find it complete!
So I brought home this game treating it with awe, and set down to reading the rules. then yesterday i set it up and invited my son in to play.
Wow we had a good time, Bolters, Plasma Guns, Orks, Androids, Chaos Marines and the Ed-209 lookalike. Good stuff.
The game was fun, my son was all excited about it and gee, what memories it brought back. We plan to retry the game again today.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Friday, July 03, 2009
Skirmish Wars Advance Tactics - First impressions
If you've ever seen any of the "Advance Wars" games on the Nintendo game systems then you know what Skirmish Wars Advance Tactics is all about.
Some fans of the Advance Wars games have put together a free Print and Play version of the computer game. The artwork on the board, cards and counters is exceptional, it features characters and artwork from the computer game, but not in the usual poor quality, enlarged sprite kind of way. No , instead all of it is print quality and a real delight to look at.
After one game I can tell you that the game play mimics the computer play almost exactly which is great. The combat is a real dream, I know the designers put a lot of effort into calculating the combat results to match the computer games combat. Like the computer version there is practically no luck in combat. You can work out the results before launching an attack and luck only comes into rolling 1 die to see if you do an additional point of damage. That doesn't sound like a lot, but every point matters so the die rolls are critical.
The computer game is turn based, you verses the AI but here your opponent is more intelligent as it's another player, in fact up to three other players and the game handles 2-4 players.
The rules are very simple and easy to grip on and joyfully also very short with some good examples.
There is not a lot of downtime, at least in the two player game, as when battles take place you get to battle back if you survived the hammering.
I'm really impressed with the game and plan on having another game fairly soon, I think I'll even run this out to my gaming group at work. Thumbsup!
Some fans of the Advance Wars games have put together a free Print and Play version of the computer game. The artwork on the board, cards and counters is exceptional, it features characters and artwork from the computer game, but not in the usual poor quality, enlarged sprite kind of way. No , instead all of it is print quality and a real delight to look at.
After one game I can tell you that the game play mimics the computer play almost exactly which is great. The combat is a real dream, I know the designers put a lot of effort into calculating the combat results to match the computer games combat. Like the computer version there is practically no luck in combat. You can work out the results before launching an attack and luck only comes into rolling 1 die to see if you do an additional point of damage. That doesn't sound like a lot, but every point matters so the die rolls are critical.
The computer game is turn based, you verses the AI but here your opponent is more intelligent as it's another player, in fact up to three other players and the game handles 2-4 players.
The rules are very simple and easy to grip on and joyfully also very short with some good examples.
There is not a lot of downtime, at least in the two player game, as when battles take place you get to battle back if you survived the hammering.
I'm really impressed with the game and plan on having another game fairly soon, I think I'll even run this out to my gaming group at work. Thumbsup!
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Red November - Discussion
I started today on my first four player game of Red November, which is neat little game from Fantasy Flight games.
The session went surprisingly well. We've had to leave the game set up and will hopefully finish it off tomorrow lunchtime.
So I started off by telling the guys about the games time track. Glazed eyes as a response. I explained when things can go wrong, pressure, heat, flooding timed events. It took a little longer but they glazed over again. So at that point I just got everyone playing and everything very quickly came into focus for everyone.
An interesting discussion came about as I was trying to unjam the door to the captains cabin while fires burned at the other end of the sub. Was I wasting my time? Some thought so. I explained that every jammed door, flood and fire is as important, though perhaps not as urgent as every other.
For instance if theres a fire and no equipment for putting them out, then Grog is important as without it you wont be able to attack the fire!. I'm not sure I made my point very well, or at least I don't think I convinced anyone.
We're all hovering around the 30 minute mark at the moment so tomorrows continuation will hopefully prove me right. :)
The session went surprisingly well. We've had to leave the game set up and will hopefully finish it off tomorrow lunchtime.
So I started off by telling the guys about the games time track. Glazed eyes as a response. I explained when things can go wrong, pressure, heat, flooding timed events. It took a little longer but they glazed over again. So at that point I just got everyone playing and everything very quickly came into focus for everyone.
An interesting discussion came about as I was trying to unjam the door to the captains cabin while fires burned at the other end of the sub. Was I wasting my time? Some thought so. I explained that every jammed door, flood and fire is as important, though perhaps not as urgent as every other.
For instance if theres a fire and no equipment for putting them out, then Grog is important as without it you wont be able to attack the fire!. I'm not sure I made my point very well, or at least I don't think I convinced anyone.
We're all hovering around the 30 minute mark at the moment so tomorrows continuation will hopefully prove me right. :)
Friday, June 26, 2009
Thursday, June 25, 2009
New Game in development and getting old
I'm working on a new space conquest game. It'll be a card driven war game of sorts. It's basically red vs blue across the galaxy.
I've been working on the board for a few days and it's really sweet. The boards background is a huge space shot showing galaxies and star systems, with play areas and tracks overlayed on top. It's the background however that makes it pop out.
The mechanics are not too original, they are a variation of some well know mechanisms but are enough different to make the game play differently.
I'm putting the most effort into the rules. I'm only doing a few minutes per night on it and thats really frustrating as I want to get this done and pushed out into the world. I'm taking it easy because I don't want to burn myself out on it. The rules will include examples of play and diagrams and each of those will take time to produce, so I'm going slowly and hopefully surely.
Once the rules are complete I have still more to do. there are 50+ cards and each has to have some unique flavour text and I know thats going to drain my creative juices so I must rush. I guess that's just part of getting older. :)
I've been working on the board for a few days and it's really sweet. The boards background is a huge space shot showing galaxies and star systems, with play areas and tracks overlayed on top. It's the background however that makes it pop out.
The mechanics are not too original, they are a variation of some well know mechanisms but are enough different to make the game play differently.
I'm putting the most effort into the rules. I'm only doing a few minutes per night on it and thats really frustrating as I want to get this done and pushed out into the world. I'm taking it easy because I don't want to burn myself out on it. The rules will include examples of play and diagrams and each of those will take time to produce, so I'm going slowly and hopefully surely.
Once the rules are complete I have still more to do. there are 50+ cards and each has to have some unique flavour text and I know thats going to drain my creative juices so I must rush. I guess that's just part of getting older. :)
Friday, June 19, 2009
Dune Express Dice
A while back I put together a game called Dune Express which I blogged about at the time. It's a dice game but does not use standard dice. Each of the dice was a special die with strange and mysterious values on each side.
I was delighted to find very clever and arty peole volunteer to create artwork for both the games board and for all of those special dice faces.
Furthermore I then had the good fortune to fall in with a chap who has a laser engraver which he uses to produce wooden Piecepacks. One small fee later and I had the dice engraved and dispatched you can see pictures of them here.
So I printed one of the boards produced by the "Crafty" chaps and kapow! A professional looking game of my own design.
I'm really happy with the dice and the board, and so thankful to all ofthe people who've applied their craft and imagination to produce such excellent dice, boards and even rules variants. I'm proud to be a member of the BoardGameGeek community [sniff].
I was delighted to find very clever and arty peole volunteer to create artwork for both the games board and for all of those special dice faces.
Furthermore I then had the good fortune to fall in with a chap who has a laser engraver which he uses to produce wooden Piecepacks. One small fee later and I had the dice engraved and dispatched you can see pictures of them here.
So I printed one of the boards produced by the "Crafty" chaps and kapow! A professional looking game of my own design.
I'm really happy with the dice and the board, and so thankful to all ofthe people who've applied their craft and imagination to produce such excellent dice, boards and even rules variants. I'm proud to be a member of the BoardGameGeek community [sniff].
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Memoir ''44 Eastern Front - session report
The Suomussalmi battle is a very interesting scenario, there aren't the usual two sides of the board. Both sides have forces in the opposite side of the board as well as their own. Additionally the AirPower card is played as a Barrage in this scenario.
The oddities do not end there! The battle is between the Finns and the Russians, and half of the Finnish forces are ski troops this means they can move three and battle but do suffer from a maximum range of two.
Of course the Russians are also playing with their own special rules that mean they have to select a card to play a turn ahead.
A lot of variables there. It's also a very bloody battle with victory being reached at 6 medals or by the Finnish troops occupying the central multi hex town. The immediate win is obviously an attractive goal, However in this case it does feel near impossible. For the Finns to win that type of victory they have to take over three of the town hexes, fair enough, however the town in garrisoned by 6 infantry units and an artillery unit all of them in town with sandbags or in a bunker!
I played this with my son the other day and he choose to go for the immediate victory but he lost because that central block of russians is very tough and well entrenched.
The session I'm going to talk about is where I played the Finnish against his Russians.
I decided to bypass that central knot of Russians for as long a possible and to rather nibble around the edges.
On my right flank there was an infantry and a tank unit well in advance so I decided to take them on first. I moved my right most finish troops into the woods and that just put them in range of the Russians. The opening salvo just pushed the tanks back.
My son new his strengths and used his guns to return fire and I took damage from that.
On my left flank I advanced my guns, as they start on the back line and out of range. I also used the infanty on that side to take some long range shots at the russians on their own baseline.
My son's brown horde came out for blood. His right flank moved forwards opening a gap for the tanks to shoot through, he put some damage into the sandbagged troops on that side.
On the centre I advanced my left ski troops forwards into the woods to support the left flank and moved the ski troops on the right up onto the hill where they could start attacking the russians who were most advanced. Again I pushed them back rather than eliminating them.
My son now embarked on using his guns almost every turn and when every possible sniping long range at my Ski troops who could not reply due to their shorter range. I was now being wittled down.
In my next turn I barraged his guns but only got a single hit. I wasn't able to hit them again during the rest of the game.
On the russian right they pounded my sanbagged troops and forced one of them to retreat thereby losing the entrenchment.
On my right I once again pounded on the lonely tanks and infantry knocking them both for troops and getting another retreat.
The Russian guns pounded my right flank seriously reducing the ski troops in the woods.
On my left I moved my ski troops on the enemies base line north to close the gap in the line and took some shots at the russian infantry over there and started scoring some serious hits.
I lost some ski troop from the center and yet again took damage from the guns on my right.
In a last gasp type situation I moved my ski troops all with only a single troop each, forwards out of the woods and close assaulted the remaing tanks and infantry. I killed the last tank and forced the infantry to retreat onto the frozen river where they fell through the ice.
The russians took full advantage of my advancing into the opening and took out one of the units on my right and killed off another on the left for a close 6-5 win.
Over all I really enjoyed this scenario. At first it looks like an easy Russian victory but in truth the scenario is really very well balanced and a great deal of fun.
The oddities do not end there! The battle is between the Finns and the Russians, and half of the Finnish forces are ski troops this means they can move three and battle but do suffer from a maximum range of two.
Of course the Russians are also playing with their own special rules that mean they have to select a card to play a turn ahead.
A lot of variables there. It's also a very bloody battle with victory being reached at 6 medals or by the Finnish troops occupying the central multi hex town. The immediate win is obviously an attractive goal, However in this case it does feel near impossible. For the Finns to win that type of victory they have to take over three of the town hexes, fair enough, however the town in garrisoned by 6 infantry units and an artillery unit all of them in town with sandbags or in a bunker!
I played this with my son the other day and he choose to go for the immediate victory but he lost because that central block of russians is very tough and well entrenched.
The session I'm going to talk about is where I played the Finnish against his Russians.
I decided to bypass that central knot of Russians for as long a possible and to rather nibble around the edges.
On my right flank there was an infantry and a tank unit well in advance so I decided to take them on first. I moved my right most finish troops into the woods and that just put them in range of the Russians. The opening salvo just pushed the tanks back.
My son new his strengths and used his guns to return fire and I took damage from that.
On my left flank I advanced my guns, as they start on the back line and out of range. I also used the infanty on that side to take some long range shots at the russians on their own baseline.
My son's brown horde came out for blood. His right flank moved forwards opening a gap for the tanks to shoot through, he put some damage into the sandbagged troops on that side.
On the centre I advanced my left ski troops forwards into the woods to support the left flank and moved the ski troops on the right up onto the hill where they could start attacking the russians who were most advanced. Again I pushed them back rather than eliminating them.
My son now embarked on using his guns almost every turn and when every possible sniping long range at my Ski troops who could not reply due to their shorter range. I was now being wittled down.
In my next turn I barraged his guns but only got a single hit. I wasn't able to hit them again during the rest of the game.
On the russian right they pounded my sanbagged troops and forced one of them to retreat thereby losing the entrenchment.
On my right I once again pounded on the lonely tanks and infantry knocking them both for troops and getting another retreat.
The Russian guns pounded my right flank seriously reducing the ski troops in the woods.
On my left I moved my ski troops on the enemies base line north to close the gap in the line and took some shots at the russian infantry over there and started scoring some serious hits.
I lost some ski troop from the center and yet again took damage from the guns on my right.
In a last gasp type situation I moved my ski troops all with only a single troop each, forwards out of the woods and close assaulted the remaing tanks and infantry. I killed the last tank and forced the infantry to retreat onto the frozen river where they fell through the ice.
The russians took full advantage of my advancing into the opening and took out one of the units on my right and killed off another on the left for a close 6-5 win.
Over all I really enjoyed this scenario. At first it looks like an easy Russian victory but in truth the scenario is really very well balanced and a great deal of fun.
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