"Finish them!!" Blood, sand and ancient battles

Nigel Heather asked me a while back about the Command and Colours (my spelling) system - I hadn't heard of it, but I had heard it's designer Richard Borg and therefore I knew it would be a good game because he also had a hand in Memoir '44. During our recently game of Memoir, we had a look through the two systems he had, Ancients and Napoleonic, and having played a lot of Rome, Medieval and Empire Total War on the PC, I knew these would be to my liking.

We arranged a game of Ancients to start us off with to see how it went. And I have to say I love this gaming system! As it is very much like Memoir, firstly I felt very at home with it - the large hex board, single hex overlays for terrain, command cards and dice rolling for attack and defence.

The first scenario was set in 406BC - The Battle of Akragus - the Carthagians vs the Syracusans (Nigel). As can be seen in the following pictures, units are depicted by wooden blocks with coloured unit pictures on them - these pictures correspond to easy to use crib sheets to show the units movement, attack dice number, range firepower and distance, plus other figures. Unlike wargame systems I've used in the past (I'm thinking Advanced Squad Leader here for starters), the crib sheets are not awash with tiny details on every single possible aspect of battling with the units. That was a big plus point. Just some key numbers - if you are attacking X with Y, you roll Z number of dice.

My Carthagians (bottom) attempt to form a defensive shell

Each dice has coloured markers, red, blue, green, flag (for retreat) plus leader symbols and crossed swords. This allows a great deal of simplicity in combat - if a unit attacks a green infantry type, check the crib sheet, see it uses 4 dice, is allowed to use crossed swords as a hit. Roll the dice, get 2 greens and one crossed swords, so three enemy units are removed. It's as simple as that.

There are some similarities in Memoir 44 - such as each player is dealt command cards that indicate which units on the field can be used (left, centre, right or a particular type such as cavalry), the dice combat, terrain and movement. There are a few differences which make the game, in my view, that much more tactical and requiring you to think a bit more about how and why you do things. The first is Leaders - your army can come with one or more Leaders who are added to a unit and allow a dice roll to use the Leader marker as a hit, allowing some devastating attacks. Another is in Memoir, if you move into close combat and the defender fails to break or is not destroyed, the units remain facing each other and there is no come back on the attacker. This is different in Ancients in that if the defender is not broken or destroyed, they get a chance to attack back, possibly leading to the destruction of the attacker! This changes the balance of the tactics some what and makes a more thoughtful game. There is also the extra ability to move the entire army, as long as each unit is connected to another to form a line, forward as a single unit one space - this represents the tactic in the ancient world of just moving one vast number of troops towards another in one go.

Nigel's Red heavy troops move into attack

We played two scenarios - the one listed above where I was destroyed by Nigels victorious army and the second was at the Crimissos River in 341 BC with the Carthagians (Nigel) vs Syracusans. This time Nigel was deployed in two places, one in front of my army, the other on the other side of the river. He had some very powerful troops on the other side of the river, but they could only cross at certain key points. I had to quickly move up my archers and slingers to take out as many as I could before they crossed (not many!) before they had to fall back under the weight of the attack. Then I brought my heavy infantry to bear in two directions, North and North-East towards the river, splitting Nigel further and preventing his river crossing troops from helping out his other soldiers. A couple of lucky Utilise all Heavy Troops cards allowed me to close the trap on the unlucky troops crossing the river, as any troops that tried to retreat ran into Nigels army behind them and had to loose more units for failing to retreat!

Crushing the Carthagians as they cross the river!

Bringing the game to a close, I won 5:3 (which was the same historical result), whilst the first battle was won 5:4 to Nigel. Fantastic system, can't wait to play again to see other unit types - it's a pity the add ons are so hard to get hold of.

A rather long trip through Time with Time Agent!

Time Agent...a game about editing Time in your space faring species favour; and then breaking time machine invention so it's all good for you and no one else. Sounds simple and it probably is, but 6 of us played this game from from 8 until gone 1am and still it wasn't resolved. I think there is a reason why "chit" type of games of this type died out in the 90's. The idea of the game was to use chits of individuals and groups to go back in Time to lots of LetterNumbered hexes which have either coloured lines on or an Event. The aim of the game is to find Events and get them flipped to the side you need them flipped (from a Chart) that shows how it affects your species and those around you. You can also get hexes rotated to break lines to prevent technologies and even time travel itself from being created, all of which have positive or negative effects.

And prize for a board game that most looks like
it's based on the Periodic Table goes to...

The game suffered from an unfortunate Monopolyism. Monopoly for me has a massive problem in that it is a game without end or one that the end is so hard to reach, people tend to give up and wonder why they played. This happened with Time Agent by 1am.

Going back in time (the hexes) to change Events (little hexes with text) or
rotate to break coloured lines to prevent major inventions being invented. Or something...

Eurogames and others like them have an inbuilt mechanism that provide a defined end point - a turn counter, limited cards, an event that happens. This game could and should have had one of these end game mechanisms, but it didn't, relying on the players to play the game well to end the game.

Unfortunately it'll mean I'll miss this game if it is played again.

Race for the Galaxy! And then the expansion!

I've seen Race for the Galaxy around for quite some time; a lot of people in the Horsham group had talked about it and I've seen it on Boardgamegeek. Brian recently got a copy and I liked the look of it. I love card games and anything space orientated and the the family get on well with card games, so I thought Hmmm, maybe it should be the next game! Then came Valentines Day and we each got each other a present on-line - Anita got a bracelet and I got....Race for the Galaxy! Yay! I had a look at it last night and it looks good - a huge box for what it is, a number of cards and some help boards. The artwork looks cool and exciting and I hope it'll catch the girls imagination.

There have been some reports of the symbols on the cards being hard to figure out especially for kids, so I was lucky to find a help file online that is called a Guide to RftG for Kids! Which seems perfect - I've had a read through and it seems a good start - it works you up into the game, taking out most of the cards and starting with a base set and then add in a few cards at a time. There was one small problem. It is a 4 player game. A quick look on Geek found that the expansion adds a fifth player as well as some good new cards and a Solo play mode, so I picked that up from Andys and hope to start playing soon!

A nice game of 7 Wonders and Ticket to Ride USA

Anita made a suggestion that we all play a family game and so we dug out the family favourite 7 Wonders and played 5 player in which Anita won with 57 points. Later in the day we played Ticket to Ride USA and Anita beat we hands down. As always!

First play of Railways of the World!

Railways of the World - one of the grandest train games of them all. Or so I'm to believe. Having played a heck of a lot of Ticket to Ride, it seemed a good time to start exploring other, more complex train games. I got RotW for Christmas but haven't had the chance to play until today. I'd got all the bits out before - and there were a LOT of bits - and had a good look and had a few plays with the bits, but not really a full proper game.

I was going to set out to have a solo game, but Maya wanted to play, so the two of us went through the rules and I tried the best I could to explain in a child friendly way, plus left out a few rules, and I found surprisingly the game was quite simple! So the two of us set out to conquer Mexico - the game comes with a huge Eastern USA board for up to 6 players whilst also a lower number of players, 2 or 3, can easily play on the Mexican map.

Game start

The basic idea of the game is to deliver wooden cubes. Random cubes are drawn and placed on the cities on the board (each city has a number which corresponds to the number of random cubes drawn). Each city is also coloured representing a type of good that that city takes in. The very basic idea of the game is to lay track to connect a city to another and deliver a good from the start city to its destination.

Each track piece costs, the amount depends on the landscape you want to cross, open, mountain, river etc. And at the start the players have no money and only a type 1 train, which means goods can only be transferred from one city to another. As the game proceeds, more advanced engines can be purchased to transfer goods further.

Connecting Cities

In order to receive money, the player must start giving Bonds to the Shareholders - really you are just getting money from the bank for the bonds to pay for stuff. And every time you move a good along one rail connection, your score marker moves up one - the score marker indicates how much money you "earn" at the end of the turn. Once all the cubes of a city are used up, a chunky City Marker (a water tower, a crossing symbol etc) is placed on the city. Once a certain number of Markers are placed (depending on number of players), the game ends.

Then the number of Bonds are counted and used to deduct from the score to give a Final Score. Poor Maya took out a LOT of Bonds and ended up with a score of 0 even though she did quite well. I was glad she managed to play because she understood the rules perfectly and even reminded me to carry out key parts of the game. I did leave out a couple of rules such as paying shareholders at the end of the turn and Rail Baron cards to simplify on our first play but it was good enough.

A great game all in all, next to get Anita to play!

End game!

"Look what you did! I don't believe what you did!" - in a blaze of Fortune and Glory!

I've been looking forward to playing this game for a long time! Ever since Nigel Heather said he had bought it I couldn't wait for an opportunity to play. The game plays up to 6 so getting that number together would be difficult, but Nigel Wood offered kindly to host and Nigel Heather offered up the game, so several of us put our names in the hat to attend - Julian post several weeks game-isolation on honeymoon in India was definitely up for playing it. So Friday night was set, myself, Brian, Steve, the two Nigels and Julian gathered at Nigel Woods enormous dining table and sat and watched in awe as the huge number of components came out of the box; explaining why F&G has a high price tag - cir £65~70!

From the start one thing is clear, F&G is Indiana Jones in a box. And that is fine with me - Flying Frog have cleverly taken an idea (the core Indiana Jones theme plus films) but instead of using that topic (obviously to avoid huge production costs) as the theme of the game, the game is based around the same topics, time period, events and idealism. And in my view it works perfectly. Everything Jonesy is in there, from the fonts, to the Nazis/Chinese thugs, Zeppelin, hidden tombs, jungles and deserts, fights, shoot outs, missing artefacts, adventures and traps.... it's all in there!

Game start - just look at the number of components and cards!
And that's only half that is on the table - and that's not all
as some are still in the box!

The map at the start - more cards and at the bottom, the first
set of hidden artefacts.

Elements of other games from Flying Frog are in there, such as the magnificent artwork, photos, materials - also the amazing character cards - complete with typical adventuring looking characters from the 1930's, with fab photos. I got Jacques Moreau - a French scoundrel that I hammed up with stereotypical French accent, tunes and one-liners from the Jones movies. The character card contains pros and cons for each of those characters; like in Last Night on Earth, but more of them. The characters also have Dice Amounts - skills such as Agility, Strength etc with a number which is the number of dice you have when trying to complete a task.

The cards all represent different things, enemies, events, tasks, events that occur in a city - then several rewards plus cards indicating the number of hazards a player will have to beat to gain that reward are dealt then a skull placed on the card. A Location card is drawn which shows where this treasure is and a matching  skull icon is placed on the map.

The aim of the game - in the Competitive version as there is a Co-Op and a version verses against villains like Nazis and Thugs - we as players roll die to be the first player, then roll a move die, move towards a treasure and then when it is reached, find out how many hazards need to be beaten to win the artefact.

Mid game - fortune and glory is being won across the board!

The hazards are typical Indiana Jones type traps or events that need overcoming - these are marked with a number of ways to overcome the hazard. This might be Roll 2 x 5's using Agility or 3 x 4's using Strength etc. Some events allow you to do the puzzle or fight a bad guy. If you fail a puzzle, it is flipped to its other side which is a Cliffhanger - a harder puzzle that if you fail means being KO'ed back to your home city and loosing gear, equipment, Glory and even possibly Artefacts in hand! If you pass the puzzle, you gain Glory - blue markers - pass enough and you win the prize; this prize can then be taken to a city and cashed in for Fortune. And Fortune is the aim of the game. Glory can be used to pay for items in the city to take on adventures.

There is much more to the game than this brief overview - but that is the essence. Our game went on for some time, but I didn't mind - I gained a lot of Fortune doing a secret mission in Paris, Nigel was edging closer to winning, Nigel Wood was knocked back several times - whilst trying to complete puzzles; but rallied back in typical Jones fashion near the end of the game to win large amounts of Fortune.

End game - Nigel Heather wins!

Fortune and Glory is a great game - a long game with a large amount of players - but I feel a great game simply because there is so much to do and enjoy, especially with 5 other people racing around the globe looking for hidden artefacts. Can't wait to play again

"Henry, Indy, follow me! I know the way! Yeehaa!"
"Lost in his own museum once, huh?"

Memoir '44 on Steam - a three game try out

Tonight I had a try out of the Steam platform Memoir'44 Online game - basically it is /memoir '44 the board game online - complete with achievements and the ability to play against others online. It's pretty cool, with everything you need to play - the graphics are pretty good; the imagery is the same as the actual game itself. Firstly I played against a Dutch player as British then Germans on a scenario based around the Arnhem Bridge then as the Russians vs the Germans at Stalingrad against a US player. I have to admit its very good - although I don't like the fact that the dice are not thrown from your own hand (impossible in a computer game I know) but there you go. The only major downside I can think of is the fact you have to pay to play by buying War Gold in batches which you then spend in 2/3/4's to play certain maps and scenarios. The better the map/scenario the more you pay. Don't like this idea at all, but what can you do?