On May 5^th there was a real bummer of a post over at BGG. Age of Piracy, the first game I ever put on my wish list, is now in production limbo due to ProLudo scrapping their game production division. I can’t imagine what this must feel like for the designers. As someone peddling a book manuscript I can say that dealing with rejection is tough enough; losing the prospect of publication after going through the hard work of finding a publisher must be even worse.

 This news is especially disappointing as AoP was perhaps my most anticipated game (rivaled only by GMT’s upcoming Clash of Monarchs). In AoP you could choose to be either a merchant or a pirate and there were mechanics for both combat and trade as well as event cards to add in the randomness necessary to reflect the age of sail. They had even gotten so far as to produce some really amazing sculpts for the various ships players could control:

 

 

 

I was so excited about this game that I traded away my copy of AH’s Blackbeard because it looked like AoP would make that game obsolete. I’m not really sad I did this; Blackbeard didn’t see much play anyway because of downtime and play length, but now I am without a pirate game. Must have a pirate game! Oh no, wait . . . that’s just my collection mentality talking and must be resisted . . . No, no I’m sure that isn’t my collection mentality, but rather my inner desire for booty and fame  - two perfectly reasonable motivations for acquiring games.

 You’d think there would be a treasure trove of thematic pirate games to choose from, but you’d be wrong. Games like Cartagena, Pirate’s Cove, Pirateer, Rum and Pirates, and even Winds of Plunder are heavily abstracted. Thematic pirate games are rare because any attempt to simulate piracy is going to run into the problematic facts that these were not nice people and that they spent much of their time not doing much of anything. Richard Berg tried to capture both of these aspects of pirate life in the original version of Blackbeard. Players can torture prisoners for information and pirates even have ‘cruelty ratings’ to modify the attempt. But be careful! If your pirate takes too much pleasure in the process you might end up killing your treasure map. One rule that was removed shortly before publication even allowed players to do unpleasant things to the governor’s daughter should she be unlucky enough to fall into their debauched hands. To simulate the unpredictable ebb and flow of pirate life, players could also spend ages doing nothing – realistic perhaps, but not much fun. It was not unusual for a tasty merchant to appear right underneath your ship only to have it disappear again as you spent the next 20 minutes failing to get a turn. GMT’s remake of the old Blackbeard, which recently shipped to pre-orders, looks like it has attempted to keep the chrome (you can still torture prisoners), while fixing the downtime problems. Pronoblem already has a copy, so unless it turns out to be a classic I probably won’t be able to justify getting my own copy. Here’s hoping Christian and Kasper find another publisher (FFG maybe?) for AoP soon.

Geeks, as a whole, never just like something. They’re enthusiasts. They can’t just buy something, they have to collect it. Even if they only buy some of, say, the Star Wars action figures, they want there to be a “theme” to what they buy. “I only get the robots.” “I only get the women.” “I only get the aliens.” (Note: they’re ALL aliens.)

So it is with boardgames. Over on Board Game Geek (granted, a haven for board game enthusiasts…geeks, if you will) it’s assumed that everyone there has a game collection. It is assumed that any games you own are part of your collection. People with multiple cars don’t necessarily refer to their car collection. I have a lot of coffee mugs, but they’re not a collection. Even all the books I own aren’t thought of by anyone as a “collection”.

I realize that “collection” in this sense is largely just a term for “a semi-organized group of similar items”, but I do think there’s a mindset there that is troubling. Too many people get onto BGG, look at what’s out there, and figure out what “needs to be” in their “collection”. And then these games sit on a shelf, unopened, unplayed, sometimes even still in the shrink, but vital to that shelf because they’re part of “the collection”.

I have been guilty of this. I can glance over at the game shelf right now and name about a dozen games on it that have barely been played — if at all — since I bought them. I can understand thinking at the time that they’d get heavy play, but if they haven’t since then, why do I still have them? Because they’re in The Collection.

My so-called collection.

But here’s the thing — I don’t want a collection. I think collections are bad. I realize that game companies and retailers would disagree with me, but I’d rather someone have five games they enjoy and play often than five hundred that just sit on the shelf. A collection, to me, implies that they’re precious objects, too valuable to be played. No one sews with their thimble collection or eats off their “Curious Pugs” Franklin Mint plate collection. Visit any website devoted to snow globe fanciers and you’ll find that many drain the water out of them to increase their life — actually removing the distinguishing feature of the item^*!

(One notable geek exception I’m aware of is my other passion, Legos. Lego geeks have no problem buying a set purely for parts and then using the parts to make their own things. If a Lego geek says, “Man, I want to get a hold of some of those new slope pieces!” then they actually want to use them in a model, not just stick one of each color on a shelf somewhere.)

Games are not for storing or displaying, they are for playing. If it’s not being played, then get it to someone who will play it, even if it’s out of print and worth eleventy-bobillion dollars on eBay.

What’s the alternative? A library. A library is a group of items intended to be used. You still have many options, but they’re all viable. You don’t have stuff that’s in there for reasons other than playing.

My goal, which I’m going to try and realize at the next Unity Games, is to turn my Collection into a Library. I’m going to whittle it down, probably to about half its current size. I’m going to lose all these things that never get played. Some I’ll give to friends if they want them, others I’ll try to sell, probably at a loss. I may have a contest on this blog for one or two of them. But the idea will be to take games that aren’t getting played and put them in the hands of people who will enjoy them. I want it to be difficult to pick out a game from my shelf to play, not because I’m overwhelmed by the numbers, but because each of them is something really good.

Step two, which I’ve already begun, is to slow down my purchasing. I don’t buy nearly as much as I used to, and I’m trying to limit the purchases I do make to things I think will honestly hit the table. I played Pandemic recently and thought, “I don’t have a co-op game, and I like this one, so maybe I’ll get it!” That’s BAD. I’m still probably going to get it, but because I think it’s a fun game that won’t get stale. Not because it plugs a hole in my “Collection”. It’s all about keeping the right mindset.

A collector.

^* - This entire sentence is completely made up.

Ok, so this happened last week, but I’ve been under-the-weather and busy so I’m just now getting to write something up. My wife and I had eleven people over last Saturday to try their hand at games of dexterity. Featured games included Bandu, Jenga, Maus nach Haus, Elk Fest, Gulo Gulo, Kubbspel (a Swedish block-throwing lawn-game), and, the king of dexterity games, Crokinole. Those lacking in dexterity risked not only humiliating defeat, but starvation as well; the food consisted of sushi (chopsticks only!) and chips and dip (no dribbling!).

Over the course of the evening there was a Crokinole tournament for fabulous prizes:

Since the Hilinski brothers had dubbed the model for my crokinole board ‘Dixie,’ Southern Comfort was the obvious choice for the grand prize. Second prize, well, does anything really need to be said about the second prize? After a series of grueling matches the albatross defeated pronoblem in the finals for the win. Overall a fun evening! A few of the attendees were not regular gamers, but still had a good time – I mean who doesn’t like watching towers fall, stealing eggs, or flicking disks?

UPDATE!

More photos from the event! (Mostly of Bandu)

A game I have both been playing and thinking about a lot lately is RAN, a game featuring seven battles from the Sengoku jidai (Age of Warring States) period of Japanese history. It is in fact the 12^th volume in Richard Berg’s Great Battles of History series and a sequel to volume five, Samurai.

 

I picked this up during GMT’s P500 sale and am really glad I did. I’d always been interested in the GboH system, but was put off by the games’ high prices and legendary complexity. According to word on the street RAN was relatively streamlined as far as the GboH system goes, the sale made the price right, and who could not be attracted by the theme?

 

RAN is probably the most thematic hex-and-counter wargame I have ever played. CDG’s have recently set the theme bar pretty high because of the ease with which they integrate historical events into the game-play, but RAN does an impressive job too of melding theme and mechanics. Each scenario in RAN covers a single battle; history here is not introduced via the occurrence of historical events, but rather through the abilities and limitations of various troop types. The game system is intricate. I certainly won’t be giving an overview of the rules here, but I will describe some of the basic mechanics in order to give you a feel for the game.

 

Here’s a pic of the start of the Mimigawa scenario:

 

 

Each of those groups of units is called a contingent. Here’s a close-up:

 

 

At this point I should say that I really like the counter art. I mean just compare these detailed drawings to old-school AH counter art and you’ll realize that counter art has come a long way.

 

This unit is a Busho, or commander, of a contingent.

 

 

In order to function properly, units need to be within the Busho’s command radius, the large number at the bottom of the counter. That number is also used to roll for momentum. After a Busho completes an activation, he can roll against this number to see if he can move again immediately. A Busho can take up two extra Orders Phases in this way. So the higher the ratings on your Busho, the more mobile your army is going to be.

 

Contingents, however, don’t get to all move at once; they have to be activated by the So-Taisho, or general, of your forces. Look here’s one now:

 

 

That number on the bottom right is how many different contingents the So-Taisho is allowed to activate each turn, so you’re going to have to make some strategic choices about which contingents to get moving, especially early in the game. Once contingents come to blows with opposing units, they tend to remain active and no longer need the So-Taisho to point them in the right direction.

 

There are three basic types of combat units, infantry

 

 

Bowmen and gunners,

 

 

And cavalry

 

 

Each type has different strengths in close combat and, obviously, the bowmen and gunners can fire from a distance.

 

Finally, there are the individual samurai units, which really serve to give this game its unique flavor:

 

 

Instead of ordering his troops to move and/or fight during an activation, a Busho can call in a samurai champion and send him off to hunt for the heads of his enemies. Samurai can issue challenges within a certain radius; any enemy samurai, Busho, or So-Taisho (unless in his honjin, or command tent) must answer the challenge or Lose Face. Losing face causes a reduction of a Busho’s stats; lose face a second time and the timeless code of the samurai warrior will demand that you commit seppuku – ritual suicide! To avoid all that, you’re going to have to duel that chest-thumping samurai calling you out. Dueling involves tossing dice and adding each samurai’s combat strength; the loser will take hits to their stamina. Once your samurai’s stamina is reduced to 0, he’s dead and his head becomes the opposing So-Taisho’s new favorite wall decoration:

 

 

That’s right, folks, there are counters for the heads you collect! Apparently, this was actually a routine practice during the battles of this period.

 

So how do you actually win? The goal is to rout the other army from the field and you do that by accumulating ‘rout points.’ Units rout when they acquire a certain number of hits from combat (number varies with each unit). An eliminated bowmen or gunner is worth 2 rout points, a unit of Ashigaru spearmen 3, samurai infantry 5, and cavalry 6. Additionally, once a contingent has suffered losses you have to check to see whether or not the contingent sticks around for more or heads for the hills. The larger the portion of the contingent that is either eliminated, routed, or disrupted the greater the chance that the contingent will call it quits. The contingent’s original Busho gives a positive modifier for the roll; the loss of the Busho in samurai single-combat will give a negative modifier. Troops apparently don’t like seeing their commander’s head paraded around on a pike. On the other hand your troops LOVE to see the heads of enemy commanders on pikes, so for each head your samurai manage to collect you get to subtract 3 rout points from your total.

 

So there you have it. There’s a lot more detail of course, but that should give you a sense of how the game plays. So what do I like about the game?

 

1) ‘Strategic’ decisions. Yeah ok so this is really a tactical battle game, but players do have choices on how to approach the battle that are beyond the placement of particular units. For example, let’s go back to that first picture, the set-up for the Mimigawa scenario. Capturing Takajo Castle is worth 10 rout points for the Otomo clan (blue). Sadly, the Otomo leader can only activate a single contingent per turn. So – do you try to beat the Shimazu to the river line and exploit what looks to be an advantage in numbers on the left flank or do you use the  Tagita contingent to make a dash for the castle before the Shimazu can reinforce the position?

 

2) Tactical decisions. There is a lot to master with respect to the unit types. How best to use bowmen and gunners? Cavalry? Cavalry is great for flanking moves, but costs you a ton of rout points to lose. Bowmen and gunners need to be up front to do any damage, but are weak in close combat. How can you both use them and protect them? Gunners are particularly interesting units because of Gunfire-Induced Aggression. If a gunner does 2 or more hits to an infantry unit there is a chance that it will charge your poor gunners in a blind rage. This will do real damage and might even eliminate your gunners. So – do you keep your gunners at long range in order to reduce the chances of such a charge? Or do you risk it? Or do you in fact try to set up your units specifically to take advantage of any enemy unit who foolishly breaks ranks in this fashion?

 

3) Samurai combat. One-on-one samurai combat is mechanically a bit simplistic, just throw dice and add in the combat factor over several rounds, but the trash talk really starts flowing when the samurai line up to tango and continues even long after the combat is over. There are few things more satisfying in wargaming than collecting the severed heads of your defeated enemies. The only disappointing aspect of the system is that a samurai can choose to run away between rounds of a combat if it looks like he might get beheaded in the next round.  If a samurai or Busho runs then they are out of the game, but it is still a bit anticlimactic. I want my head dangnabit!

 

4) Variability. Along with player decisions, the momentum rolls and the contingent flight rolls will ensure that battles develop along different lines each time you play.

 

5) Solitaire-suitability. Since there is no hidden information and you never know quite how far either your own units or those your opponent will be able to move (due to momentum rolls) the game plays solo really well.

 

Although I love the game and can see it getting a lot of play in the future, the game is not without its flaws.

 

1) The rules. Ahh where to start? As I mentioned earlier this is the 12^th game in the GboH system and it is apparent that the GboH engine has been modified to fit the context of the Age of Warring States. I believe this explains the large number of ambiguities and gaps in the rules. Just check out a few of the threads on BGG to see what I mean. At this point, I’m not sure the designers are capable of proofreading their own rules because there are now 12 different versions of the same basic system; that’s just too much mental interference. None of the issues are game-breaking, but your first plays will require some head-scratching and you and your opponent will need to make a few reasoned judgments concerning whatever gaps and ambiguities you come across.

 

2) The map for the battle of Nagakute. This map is missing a huge patch of rice paddies that are supposed to lie between two large contingents. The difference between the impact of clear terrain and the sloshy rice paddies on movement and combat is sufficient that one pretty much needs to print out the map patch (available on BGG or the GMT website), but really who wants to have to paste on a patch?

 

3) The system is a little marker-heavy. There are markers for everything: contingent activation, open vs closed order, whether or not a unit must engage in Shock combat, engaged markers, markers to indicate a Busho has already given orders . . . you get the idea. As a consequence all that great counter art spends a lot of time covered up by pedestrian looking markers. A small point to be sure, but it bugs me nonetheless.

 

4) The rules for contingent flight. Whether or not a given contingent runs away is based on several factors you can control: the level of damage to its units, the survival or not of the original Busho, and the survival or not of the original So-Taisho. But at the end of the day, it comes down to a die roll. Now this doesn’t bother me – it is both thematic and will help to ensure that each game plays out differently. But the impact of these die rolls can be dramatic. In one scenario my devious opponent had executed a devastating attack using a cavalry-heavy contingent and was rolling up my right flank unit by unit. I had no reserves at this point and was in big trouble, but the gods must have been smiling because needing to roll only a 1-9 on a ten-sided die to survive his contingent flight check, my opponent rolled a ‘0’ and watched his entire flanking contingent turn tail and run. As a result I was able to shore up my right flank and press home my advantage in the center for the win. So if these kinds of wild swings of fortune will bother you then RAN is probably not your game.

 

Despite these flaws, I rate RAN a 9. Not only do I plan to enjoy this game far into the future, but I also plan to check out other GboH titles; the upcoming Chandragupta, in particular, has caught my eye.

Last night I played a game of Twilight Struggle with Mike. I lost, of course, because I suck at it, but at least I made it to Turn 7 before dying pathetically. I still haven’t’ come up with a good strategy other than flailing about until I’m put out of my misery. Every scoring card I played was played as to minimize my losses, because GAIN points? Why would I want to do that?

But that’s not what I’m here to talk about. This is the first time I’ve played TS since I played 1960: The Making of the President. Now, a lot of folks see 1960 as a lighter TS and in many ways it is, but I’m really sold now on the idea that 1960 is the superior game. There’s something about TS I feel is a big flaw and now that I’ve played 1960 I can articulate it. It is this: I really don’t care about most of the cards in TS.

When I look at my hand in TS I am mainly looking at ops points. Last night I was playing the US and I found that there were very few US cards that I was actually interested in playing as events. And big ones, like NATO! The action that NATO provides is completely inferior to the four OP it alternatively provides. There were some cards I loved to see for the actions, but the vast majority were just ops points to me. In a card-driven game, I’d like to care about the cards. Otherwise I’ll just roll a die and use that many OP.

Once I noticed this, I started looking at the USSR cards I was dealt. There were many of them that I sure as hell didn’t want Mike to get his hands on, but if I were the USSR player, I wouldn’t have been dying to play them myself. It was merely a case of “I don’t want to give Romania away for free, but if I were the USSR, grabbing Romania would be low on my list of priorities.”

In 1960, the cards’ actions are very useful. In fact, there are many times when it’s very hard to decide between CPs and Events. Kennedy’s weakness is the temptation to use TOO MANY events. He’s got a ton of cards that enhance his abilities and mess with Nixon, but at the expense of actually doing something other than enhancing his abilities and messing with Nixon. And in that sense — where I’m using the events of the cards to manipulate the board instead of just numbers — I feel like there’s more going on thematically in 1960 than there is in TS.

I’ve only played one other card-driven wargame (other than, say, Memoir ‘44 and Combat Commander, which don’t really count) — a single play of Here I Stand a while back. I don’t remember the cards there well enough to know how I felt they fit in.

Am I completely off base? I realize that since I’ve NEVER WON Twilight Struggle — or even come close — I could be overlooking something huge here, so let me know what you think.

Pretty quiet around here recently. Nothing like a little bragging to get things going again. The crokinole board that I ordered from the Hilinski brothers came in last week and I must say it’s a beaut. And as many of the H-Lers found out to their dismay last Sunday I’m already quite good. Check out just one example of my crokinole genius below:

Hot on the heels* of Ridley Scott’s confirmation that he will be directing the upcoming film based on the smash hit board game Monopoly, a number of other studio partnerships have uncovered their plans to tackle board-to-big-screen projects. And while Monopoly is the people’s choice front runner, with a space reserved in almost every American family closet, there are other, lesser known competitors who some insiders think can derail the iron, shoe, and race car. Studio executives seems to be counting on board games performing more like comic book translations to film than video game translations to film. And why not? Like comic books, board games are not historically grounded in the digital experience. Will 2009 be the year of the Board Game Blockbuster? Few details are known about these talkies that are still in infancy, but here’s what we could uncover:

Spike Lee’s You Can’t Check Me

Lee returns to roots in a film that is rumored to feature current Boston Celtic Ray Allen reprising his role in Lee’s 1998 gritty masterpiece, He Got Game. Some cite screenplay concerns about a game with such indecipherable rules. But the theme of the game is clear – to win. I’m guessing you won’t be able to stop yourself from checking what some are saying will garner Lee his long awaited first Oscar.

Terry Gilliam’s Samurai Lords

The game covers a sweeping scope of hundreds of years of Japanese history. Gilliam is rumored to have raised $200 million for this project, but will it be enough? The buzz is that Lionsgate will be actually taking pre-orders on tickets. Viral marketing or desperate measure? Only time will tell.

Alejandro Jodorowsky’s Pax Romana

A mystery project currently under the working title “CP-47”. Starring Major Waldemar Fydrych, Banksy, Thomas Kuhn and Curtis Armstrong from Better Off Dead. Music by Mike Patton and Yma Sumac. Theaters will be required to install large hexagonal seats designed by Anselm Kiefer. Script by Alan Smithee.

Quentin Tarantino’s Caylus

Critics are anticipating an overly scripted derivative box office smash.

Audiences may have to wait, but there’s a trend in the air. And that can only mean good quality entertainment.

*At least six months later.

Rachel, Matt, Kiri, and I finally played one of the surprise hits of Essen 2007, Galaxy Trucker, by Vlaada (Vladimír) Chvátil and produced by Czech Games Edition. That’s right, people were skeptical that a game of that name could be any good. Believe me, it can be.

Here’s the gist of the game. Everyone builds a spaceship using the pile of parts in the center of the board. Although building quickly can be a bonus, and there can be a sand timer involved, it’s not strictly a “real-time” event. You will add things to your spacecraft like cargo holds, crew quarters, lasers, shields, engines, and batteries. There are, of course, rules associated with the building, but for the most part they’re obvious — for example, you really shouldn’t put any part of the spacecraft directly behind an engine or directly in front of a laser.

A well-built ship.

Once your ship is built, you then send it on a trip across the galaxy. Event cards are turned up one at a time and everyone encounters them. What you’re trying to do is make it to the finish intact, preferably with some cash and goods. Along the way you encounter pirates, meteors, abandoned spaceships, trade planets, open space (where you can put the pedal to the metal and gain some speed), and a host of other boons and banes.

These guys are ready to almost make it to the end of the Galaxy.

You track each ship’s relative position (first, second, third, fourth), which can change depending on how events go. Being in first place will get the highest payoff at the end, but a lot of hazards like to hit the first place position hard. Being in first place gets you first crack at the trade planets and other opportunities, but taking advantage of them can often delay you and put you further back in the pack.

Batteries. Just one in the morning prevents runny nose all day.

The destructive hazards are the most fun. There’s always a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth as meteors or pilots tear apart the players’ ships, sending cargo, engines, and lasers, and crew into the junk pile. In our game, Kiri got two unlucky rolls in a row and destroyed his main pilot’s section (he won anyway). Matt was particularly ill-treated by Dame Fortune, as he watched his ship get whittled down to five components.

My goodness, Matt’s ship, you certainly have lost a lot of weight!

Once you finish you get your reward for your finishing spot, sell whatever cargo you have left, see who has the prettiest ship (no fooling — it’s based on the number of exposed connections you have), and then pay for damage incurred.

And then you do it two more times!

The rulebook is very well written, and is one of those books where the writer attempts humor while explaining the rules. However, this is the rare case in which the humor is actually funny. I didn’t need to read most of the rules to the other players, but wanted to for the light-hearted, jokey tone (which still gets the method of play across). The rulebook also teaches the game by telling you how to build a spaceship and then having you do so, without explaining more. You then encounter a programmed set of eight cards for your first flight, which it uses to explain encounters. Having survived that, you’re ready for rounds two and three, with a few more rules. I think it works very well.

The game is very well produced. The bits (though tiny) are great, especially the cute little astronauts. The component tiles are well-done, and use color well to remind players what things do. For example, there are purple and brown aliens you can have on your ship, which enhance your lasers and engines respectively. You know this right away because their crew quarters are purple and brown, and also lasers are purple and engines are brown. The icons on the cards are very clear, and everything seems pretty sturdy, especially considering the first part of each round where everyone’s grabbing for all the tiles.

In fact, the only complaint I have is that it’s out of print and looks like when it’s back in print, it’ll be pretty pricey. Thoughthammer’s got preorders for the Rio Grande edition, scheduled for April, at nearly fifty bucks! Ouch!

And yet, I may pay that. Because boy howdy, is this game fun. We had a blast playing it and I know I would love to play it again soon. It’s light, fun, and funny, and I don’t really have any other games like it. I don’t know how well it works with three and two players, though I imagine it scales well.

Between Galaxy Trucker and Brass, 2008 is shaping up to be a great gaming year indeed!

The spaceships look so cute before the cold hard reality of space destroys them.

(Also posted at BGG.)