Lestrades_Game

Imported games have the allure of being foreign and expensive, they also often come with the glamorous trappings of bad rules translation. Pacific War is all of these things but first the good; It’s short. I’m not being factious here, generally Pacific Theatre war games are long and complicated, which is fine but it leaves the shallow end of the dream pool rather empty. The Pacific War clocks in around 2-3 hours and feels engrossing for this life span. You’ve got a point to point map, pretty and functional but no pageant winner, a deck of cards, and a load of counters representing ships that come in on a historical reinforcement schedule. Each year long turn you get a variable number of cards. Players take action rounds discarding a card to win the privilege of doing something and then either play an event card, or move some ships, or resupply some ships (so they can move again). Once out of cards they roll off for priority in taking more actions but if they roll doubles the y...

Won by the Sword went down like Fat Man over Nagasaki on most wargame forums when released by GMT back in 2014. Lots of misprints on the components and errors in the rules gave it a bad rep to such an extent that GMT decided to bail it out with a patch. James and I have played a couple of games reworked version, it still rides like a bike with two missing gears but its probably the most innovative and insightful design to hit the scene in the past 10 years. The rules; they work fine for the most part, James is clearer on the gaps than me, he reads them, I'm the opponent. What I will say is that they work if you can put the daddy pants on and make common sense decisions to fill any minor gaps. Forage; Some games are about movement, some about concentration of fire, some moral, others unit composition, some bluff or even supply routes. Won by the Sword is about burning peoples villages and taking all their food, mostly just to stop your opponent doing it. This is the 30 year...

I bought Napoleon's Triumph several years ago when it was cheap and life was easy. I found it pretty hardcore and only pulled it off the shelf once every six months so I sold it to some dude from Sheffield. Since then I've moved to Sheffield and that dude (James) is one of my main game opponents. Recently (relatively) we've been playing Napoleon's Triumph. Image by Mitte_70, borrowed from BGG. I think my initial feelings about this game have been validated. If you play it regularly there is some thing really unique here. With single sporadic games you have to relearn the un-intuitive rules and live through the same mistakes. It becomes a game of who makes biggest blunder first. In our most recent game James took me by surprise by effectively using his cavalry to screen. I know that this is the primary role of cavalry in most warfare but this was the first game I have seen it done effectively. It tied down my best infantry corps more or less taking it out of the ...

My friend Pete convinced me to buy some 1:1200 scale metal ships for fleet battle games. He picked up some Russo Japanese War Battleships and frigates and I being the most dapper of war gaming hipsters acquired some 30 ships from the well known Sino-Japanese War. I spent today gluing my fingers together and basing the ships. Yesterday we played a short skirmish with the Russo Jap ships using a simplish rule set. It is grey at sea The game is pretty simple, ships are split in to squadrons, plays roll for initiative then take it in turns to move each squadron and fire with each squadron and there's a phase for damage control and spotting (no ships start on the table instead you move dummy paper counters around until you are spotted). Combat is bucket o dice with a mixture of better dice and modifiers for the bigger guns. It makes sense, does a reasonable job of simulation and plays quick. The game adds colour with some interesting critical hit tables and a wide range of wea...

April and my first post for 2017. Like most blogs at some point the writer losses interest or time. I intend to keep posting but far less regularly as I spend more timing down the climbing wall and less time gaming, and when I do play wargames I feel less compelled to write about my experiences. Solo gaming has sort of died for me, as has reading rules. Who knows perhaps it will come back but in the past 5 months all the games I have played have been short face to face affairs as I still enjoy the social aspects of the hobby. I do intend to solo my copy of the Dark Valley by Ted Racier at some point, and perhaps round of Quatre Batailles en Espagne but that's about it and that could take me a good year. Having said this I do intend to publish several quick posts in quick succession. I considered adding a meme, but the Battleship Yamoto is better than any I could think of.