Board Games

Mission Command: Sea Game

Alright, fans, this is going to be a good one, so strap on your seat belt and let me take you downtown where best stuff happens. You see, there are very few games that I think are a solid 10 rating based on factors such as production quality, value, and the most important aspect of any game, the level of fun it provides. Well, Mission Command: Sea isn’t a perfect 10, but it’s pretty damned close. The one thing that it lacks, the one thing holding it back from a destiny of greatness, is just a little more complexity.

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Pegasus Hobbies – Making Your Table Shine Without Eviscerating Your Wallet

Friends, I’ve decided that I’ve been remiss in not sharing with you the vast pool of knowledge that I’ve learned over the years regarding tabletop miniatures gaming, and so this is the first of many articles that will pass on some of the laborious research I’ve carved out of the Internet. The tag will be “Miniatures Gaming 101” and I’ll be putting articles ranging from figure sources, game rules, painting tip sites, terrain building help, the best books to buy, and all manner of things relating to all things miniature. I’m not a great figure painter, though I can hold my own, but I am a very capable terrain builder, so I’ll likely share some of my projects with you fine folks as well. So, let’s begin with a great source of material to quickly and cheaply get a table going for a skirmish: Pegasus Hobbies

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Settlers of Catan – So Long, And Thanks For All The Wood

I’d heard about Settlers of Catan a hundred billion times, at least, as it’s widely called “The Fazzer Of Ze Euroz Gaming”, and I’ve heard it panned by Ameritrash folks as a gaming atrocity. Although not as widely hated, at least publicly, as renaissance farming or weenie trading games, it has been the subject of scorn and ridicule. “It doesn’t have a body count”, they said. “It doesn’t have much player interaction”, the said.

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Some of my Favorite Games

I’ve been a bad blogger. I haven’t written anything for this blog since January 15, and here it the last day of March. My sponsor, GMS Magazine, tried to jog me into action a month ago, and it almost worked, but I got busy or lazy or both. It isn’t hard for me to get lazy–I was born that way. And I was working like crazy on Deluxe Tunnels and Trolls in January and February. I’m still working like crazy on that game, but I could have found time to say something about other games I’ve played or liked.

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X-Wing

Well, I had a buddy over yesterday for an X-Wing game day, and after playing my third game, I was hooked. If you want me to just cut to the chase, here goes: X-Wing is the smartest, most entertaining fighter skirmish game I’ve ever played. This says a lot, because I’ve played probably twenty of these games, from Full Thrust to Renegade Legion to Battle Fleet Mars to A Call To Arms; I’ve got a lot of experience with these games and X-Wing is easily the most approachable and tightest. The draw, for me, is that the game hits that magical sweet spot where complexity and practicality intersect. Very few games ever hit that spot, generally erring either on the side of simulation or oversimplification. X-Wing, however, gets it absolutely perfect, with enough complexity to make it a game worth playing while having very simple, understandable, and intuitive rules that don’t get in the way of the players. It literally blows every other fighter combat game into itty bitty rippy bits.

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Coup

Much as technology and my bank balance tend toward miniaturization, there seems to have been a recent trend for compact, fast but beautifully formed games, ‘microgames’ I believe the kids are calling them. The poster boy, or rather poster princess, for these recent offerings is undoubtedly the well-regarded Love Letter, a game that revolves around you passing a note of affection to the object of your amorous desires without the knowledge and interference of your fellow players. Brilliant.

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[Review] D-Day Dice

The whole idea of the game is that you play Australian, French, American, and British forces attempting to storm a beach and take out a Nazi bunker. This is accomplished by rolling dice every turn in order to gain resources which will allow you to progress through the mine-laden terrain.

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[Review] Trajan

Trajan is a game from the labyrinthine mind of designer Stefan Feld, who also sired Castles of Burgundy, amongst others, into an unready world. Like many of his oeuvre the connection between the actual gameplay and the goodest of good emperors is perhaps tenuous, but you don’t buy a box of this many pastel wooden bits for a gung-ho weapon wielding imperial simulation, you buy it for the chance to experience the interlocking mechanics brought forth from the designers brain, and, given time, hone or even perfect your use of them.

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