Lestrades_Game

This is sort of similar to Shark vs Tornado or Batman vs Superman but with board wargames... Having played both Blocks in the East (BITE) and Eastfront, i thought I'd give a very brief comparison: > I love Eastfront, I did not like BITE. > Eastfront is design for effect game. It limits its rule complexity and trims down the number of components by rolling air power and supply all into HQ strength steps and brings out the severity of the conflict through its weather rules and map design. > BITE on the other hand goes the other way and has a more is more philosophy with more smaller hexes, probably three times the number of blocks and both air power and supply represented explicitly > The base rules for Eastfront are marginally more complex however in practice its much easier to play than BITE. BITES core rules could be mistaken for an Axis and Allies evolution but it layers on a tonne of chrome and lots of resource management with the advanced rules. The final...

It’s EastFront a 1991 Craig Besinque block game about the war on the EastFront and this is the winter of 1941. My friend Pete of https://spprojectblog.wordpress.com/ played the role of Uncle Joe, and my friend James of https://twitter.com/ConsimsSheffied   turned into Hitler. I played STAVKA and OKH interpreting their orders and soloing the game. Every few turns I sent both a photo and awaited strategic direction. Turn 1 From Der Fuhrer “ Guten morgen from the Fuhrer's headquarter. The Fuhrer is satisfied to hear that the invasion is going to plan and congratulates you on your progress so far. Your objectives are simple: Moswcow and Leningrad must fall. You will divert a portion of your forces to push towards Tula from the south to draw the Soviets away from the main thrust of the attack, which will come from the north. Do not waste the Fuhrer's best units on this diversionary attack - once the Fuhrer's armour is seen on the streets of Moscow the U...

I went over to Manchester this past weekend, a tree fell on my motorbike and knocked out the low beam (high beam still works fine though weirdly), but more importantly I joined in with an invasion of blighty. Kriegsmarine and Royal Navy make moves as the game designers and control team look on. Mega-games have become a bit of a bigger deal over the past year. The London based organisers, centred around a Jim Wallman, have come up north twice now, I played in the Italy campaign game in Leeds a few months back (I will throw together an article on this at some point) and now I served as the German 8 th corps operations officer for an invasion of Britain in 1940. Operation Sea Lion was planned by German high command after the campaign in France but never launched. This game looks at a what if, with a few historical realities papered over a little to make the invasion a little more feasible. The game involves about 60 players in two teams, who have to essentially lear...

I traded off my copy of OCS Reluctant Enemies, something I thought I’d never do.  I’d solo’d it through twice and played the short scenario face to face and sort of felt done with it. It’s a great way into OCS but I think the French strategy can drag the game in a certain direction. If they go defensive they can force the game into a battle of attrition in the Northern Mountains in the late game. The game then descends down to the roll of the dice. Ever searching for playable but deep Napoleonic Operations I got Seven days of 1809 for it. But lucky me, (and my dog) the chap I traded with threw in an extra game for free! Tide of Fortune – a 1992 complex operational war game on the Netherlands in 1944 by John Schettler.   setup for just the western map. I was interested in what happened along the coast before Market Garden. The Germans have the numbers but they are badly out of position (grey counters). If Antwerp falls too quickly they could be out...

Well the blogging schedule I had convinced myself i was going to keep hasn't worked out. Too much thesis writing... I've had a slightly turbulent relationship with hex and counter war games. I've played several of the simpler ones; A Victory Denied (MMP), Hells Gate (VPG), Nuklear Winter 68 (LnL), Arnhem (SPI), and one a little more complex, It Never Snows (MMP). Of these games only It Never Snows really impressed me, and thats a sprawling monster that takes 17 hours to play and really at least 4 players (http://www.shutupandsitdown.com/blog/post/review-it-never-snows/). Most of these games I found to be a combination of the fiddliness of hex and counter war games, and a little too simplistic in terms of the strategy they offered to be worth the effort. Bloody Hell: Operations Goodwood and Spring bucks this trend. This game is a two player Hex and Counter simulation of the British and Commonwealth forces fighting the Germans in Normandy in WW2. For those of you with s...