new stuff!
Things have been really busy recently so progress on most fronts has been pretty slow. However, I've been going through one of those periods where there is a lot of interesting stuff arriving on my desk.
Books first....
- The Men Who Would Be Kings (TMWWBK): The latest Dan Mersey rules from Osprey. From what I have read these are very simple and very entertaining. If I was starting Desert Eagle again, I'd start from here. Very interesting.
- Table Top Wargames: By Risk Priestley and John Lambshead (Pen and Sword). The jury is out. I don't think they are giving any secrets away in this one. Some of the key design issues (movement distance vs. firing distance for example) were covered off nicely by Phil Barker in a short article in The Nugget (if I remember correctly) some years ago.
- Sandbox Infantry Patrols: This is brilliant (and only $2.99 from Wargames Vault). Basically a solo campaign for small scale patrols in Iraq or Afghanistan. Very, very nice. As some of you may have guessed, I don't do rules as written (RAW) but this one really tempts me to just do it as per the book.
Golan '73: This arrived very unexpectedly by post a couple of days ago. I had been watching the GMT P500 news on this for a while and had gone so far as to read the e-rules. My chum Pete, who well remembers our battles on the Golan using October War (SPI) in the 1970s, sent it to me as an early birthday present. A very welcome addition as well as being a great reminder of some happy times. I'll definitely win this time round!
In other news:
- CnC Medieval: Check this out. I'm not sure 6/7th century Byzantium counts as medieval but very interesting nevertheless.
- Heroes of Normandie Card Game: I love the boardgame, will this be even better?
- Firestorm Bastogne: I'm a big fan of Firestorm as a concept, this looks great too.
I'm sure there is lots of other stuff occurring but this is enough for me to be getting on with for the moment!
I laughed at your mention of SPI's October War.
ReplyDeleteThe second board wargame I ever played when I was 12, and it had original stuff like 'alternate movement and firing' if I remember correctly.
I'm not saying what year it was, but I had to be home by 10pm and Knots Landing was on TV... (the first time round, none of your repeats mind).
It was quite the new fangled jazz back in the day! (October War that is, not Knots Landing).
Look forward to your take on The men who would be kings. i like the Dan Mersey approach to rules and this looks to be different enough to deserve a place on the shelf.
ReplyDeleteI read some comments on Tabletop Waragames the other day (Kieth Flint's blog I think) that overall thought the book had interest, but what caught my attention was that the author thought Average Dice were something of a relic ....... they happen to be amongst my most favourite of devices and substantially overlooked by many designers (I had them in the draft version of Into Battle - the WWII tactical rules that used squares that nearly cost you your thumb!.
Yes, I must get a game of TMWWBK soon.
ReplyDeleteI have foreign legion and plains wars indians/yanks to dust off first. The only concern I have with a 'Plains Wars' blog post is trying to avoid using the lyrics of Iron Maiden's 'Run to the Hills' as commentary for the pics :)
I sort of cut my teeth on WRG Ancients 5th ed., so Average Dice were always the order of the day.
I notice also that they smooth out the curves of the d6 in Neil Thomas's one hour wargames, and a lot of people are recommending DAv rather than D6 for those rules.
Hi Norm, sorry to hear about the return of your back trouble. Yes, they regard average dice as "obsolete". I laughed at that as well. I always thought they were a very sensible way to achieve a balanced outcome (a two dice curve with one die in effect). The discussion of dice and probability in the book is actually quite good particularly their analysis of use of "saving" throws.
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to your article in MW this month. Cheers
Jay (still two thumbs!)
Hi Duc,
ReplyDeleteGlad you liked the October War reference. That was 1977, the year I started work. I defeated my chum in the Syrian campaign pretty much on the last die roll. My Syrian infantry had Saggers and I won the ambush roll and then knocked out his last Centurions. So, after 39 years I still remember what happened. Just proves that gaming produces a strong narrative. Also, that was probably one of the only games I ever won against my mate!
If the October War system as so great (and it was) why have we not seen it again? I'm sure Norm probably knows why.
Cheers
Jay
Yeah - a good point. I should probably adapt it to tabletop battles ;)
ReplyDeleteTell me this - how did you get the 'random games from my collection' widget from BGG onto your blog?
I want to do the same :)
Average Dice for neil Thomas ..... what a splendid idea.
ReplyDeleteHi Guys,
ReplyDeleteThe random games gadget can be found by following this path: BGG/My Geek/Preferences/Widgets. It gives you some code to copy and paste into a box in your layout page on blogger.
I'll definitely give some thought to average dice, using them for Neil T's OHW combat would be very good.
Cheers
Jay