http://files.boardgamegeek.com/audio/FFG_CP_Interview.mp3

Excellent news from Boardgame Geek! Aldie reports in a quick interview with Christian Petersen of FFG that DUNE (rethemed), COSMIC ENCOUNTER, and BORDERLANDS will soon be reprinted by Fantasy Flight Games! Fantastic!

Shiny!

As you might know if you've been reading along all this time, I'm a drooling fanboy over Fantasy Flights' WINGS OF WAR system.



Fantasy Flight has just posted pictures of the new soon-to-be-released OFFICIAL Wings of War aircraft miniatures. The good news (as you can see, is that they are really, really slick, and correspond roughly to 1:144 scale.

The bad news? To paraphrase Kevin Nikolai Payne:

The price is Euro 9.50 for a single airplane, and a 4-pack costing quite a bit (For us clueless Americans, that's about 11 bucks for one plane). That's pretty steep, but you do get the stands (with proper WoW markings) as well as the plane assembled and painted, so it may well be worh it.

I'm sorry, Fantasy Flight, buy you done lost me. I'll go seek out 1:144 scale aircraft and make my own damn bases. That's hideous.

Confirming Kevin's guestimates, Rich Low (of BPD fame) sent me this URL:
Wings of War Miniatures: Fokker DR I - Rahn $8.36
http://www.thoughthammer.com/product_info.php?products_id=3324
That's right, 8.36 for a single 1:144 scale miniature. And Thought Hammer Discounts out the wazoo, ladies and gentlemen..

I peruse blogs quite a bit and interact with a buttload of boardgaming blogs. This seems to be the time of year for people to wistfully proclaim what they played and didn't play in the previous year. Well, I can't do that. At least, I can't present a detailed gaming diary like some of my compadres can, come 01 January. What I can do is talk about trends in gaming, as it applies to me.

Looking back upon the previous year I can see that my boardgaming hobby is starting to overtake the miniatures hobby somewhat. I still love to collect minis, paint minis and run games, but it's so much work any more, I just don't have the time I used to have to do it. So I played in more miniatures games than I ran and I ran less than I did last year.
A disturbing trend.

Boardgames got more play this year, and card games before boardgames. Why? Well, that's simple. I play mostly with kids these days, and they have the attention span of chipmunks. So games that can be resolved in an hour or less are preferred. Big hits in 2005: Wings of War (particularly with Garrett), Balloon Cup (several plays), Battleground: Fantasy Warfare (three plays so far), Cheapass' Give Me the Brain and Very Clever Pipe Game, Castles (I didn't care for it, the kids did), Before I kill You Mr. Bond (it sucks, but the kids like it), Fluxx, Nanofictionary, Once Upon a Time, Cthulhu 500, Gloom.

I played a surprinsing amount of board wargames last year, but didn't keep a diary or anything. Standouts in my memory are FRIEDRICH (multiple plays), WELLINGTON (multiple plays), BONAPARTE AT MARENGO, REVOLUTION: THE DUTCH REVOLT, LILY BANNERS (multiple plays... for a magazine article), 3DOG version 3, GRINGO, DOWN IN FLAMES, FLYING COLORS, WARP WAR, OGRE/GEV, ICE WAR, and quite a few others that I haven't recalled. I seem to recall a spate of pulling out SPI games very early in the year, and playing some S&T games, but I can't remember which.

I played an even larger portion of either Euro, Family, or borderline strategy or fantasy/sf games last year: ACQUIRE (many times), ARKHAM HORROR, WAR OF THE RING, CONQUEST OF THE EMPIRE, BOOTLEGGERS, KING OF NEW YORK (yes, I have a weakness for plastic pieces), but also SETTLERS (for the first time) METRO, ARENA MAXIMUS (sucks), CIRCUS MAXIMUS, PLUNDER, and quite a few others that aren't on the forefront of my brain.

PBeM is down, via utilities like Cyberboard and ADC2. PBeM via Web or just via Email has gone up to a great extent, due to the convenience factor.

I've done a lot of solitaire gaming, but very rarely with solitaire designs. Most of this was to try out a scenario at least once for a review I was writing. Sometimes it was something small, like a magazine game (Catherine the Great -- the jury's still out) or playing myself in a microgame (I still like these). I don't have a dearth of opponents, but I do have a dearth of time to get out except for maybe, possibly once a week if I am very lucky. One final thing about 2005-- once again I was not a flavor the week kind of gamer. I played a lot of older products last year.

So those were the prevailing trends of my 2005 gaming.. for what it's worth.

This is around the time of the year I get more new wargames/history games than any other. Sometimes I get review copies (not the 'freebie' you think they are, there's a lot of work involved in these game reviews!). Sometimes I get birthday presents. In any event, here are some recent real wargame acquisitions and my first glance opinions about them.

(have patience... Blogger, for some reason, squishs layout tables and starts them halfway down the page... fie, blogger, FIE!)

First of all, there's REVOLUTION: THE DUTCH REVOLT by Phalanx. A very interesting game (on a small map) on a somewhat neglected subject. Revolution simulates the Eighty Years? War between Spain and the Netherlands. This epic struggle lasted from 1568 until 1648 and eventually brought independence to Holland and the northern provinces. In the south, the revolt was less successful and Belgium did not emerge as an independent state until after the Napoleonic era. Revolution is a game I have been wanting, because I love obscure subjects for wargames, and I like Phalanx as a company. This is one of their more "wargamey" wargames, with the exception of perhaps A HOUSE DIVIDED. It looks like it will be a real hoot to play, if somewhat longish.
The New version of ROMMEL IN THE DESERT (Columbia Games) showed up. This is a great block game simulating a simpler approach to the North African war using blocks to retain fog of war. This game is a closer cousin to HAMMER OF THE SCOTS than, say, EAST FRONT. Logistics cards are very important, much like the strategy cards in Hammer. My only problem with this is that I already own the earlier version of the game! I guess I can trade it off.
BEYOND NORMANY is the British addition to the Panzer Grenadier system by Avalanche Press. This is my first exposure to the system, which looks reasonably straightforward and a heck of a lot easier, than, say Advanced Squad Leader or Tobruk. I intend to give this one a try. The bits are lavish; nice (somewhat glarilnly yellow) folded maps, the standard isometric squad view counters. Surprisingly thin cardstock, I thought, but the art is wonderful. Oh, it comes with 42 carefully researched and playtested scenarios...
Last, and maybe the best acquisition of the bunch, FRIEDRICH by Histogames. I've been wanting to get this one since I played it at PREZCON last February. The system is unique, colorful, easy to play, easy to teach a newbie, but loaded with options (and, yes, a lot of luck of the draw). That's okay with me, I know it's a hoot to play.
And so, with these recent acquisitions, plus the recent CONQUEST OF THE EMPIRE, I suspect I've acquired more WARgames than I can play in a year. I hope I can get at least one session in with something soon, and if I do, you'll read about it here.

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Vene, Vidi, Vici

You may have read the previous post that was ruminating on what to purchase for myself for my own birthday.. Twilight Imperium III or Conquest of the Empire II? In true Republican style, I polled the audience, and the responded somewhat enthusiastically. I realize that this is somewhat tongue in cheek (duh, of course) but the process illustrates how I decide what game to buy. The important points-- playing time, a designer I like, are touched upon. The fact that TI was about ten bucks more expensive factored into things, too.

I have heard the evidence presented below (from my Consimworld BLOG)...

Eric Miller: Get 'em both

Ron Wuerth: I have neither game so in true CSW fashion, I think I am most qualified to speak here ... but I wont! Well, I guess I could tell you that from the descriptions of the two, I'd go for "Conquest of the Empire", but that is solely based upon my preferences, without casting judgement on either game.

Peter Card : I've played Twiglet Emporium Three a few times, and its not bad. The illegitimate step-child of Puerto Rico and a giant space battle game with plastic spaceships. The great Imperial Strategy debate still rages, but there are official and unofficial variants out there that fix it in various ways. That's all by the by though. The main thing is that if you work hard and eat right you get to build death stars and obliterate inhabited systems. What's not to like? Playing time is long, but you can get a 4-6 player game done in 6 hours, maybe a little less, maybe a lot more, depending on playing styles. The plastic bits twist off with minimum pain and effort, whichis nice. Once everything has been twisted or punched you can fit everying in an A4 size file box and use the giant box it came in for temporary accommodation.

Mike Reed : Buy "Twilight Imperium" first...Fantasy Flight has a better track record on these types than Eagle...not to mention the production quality looks a bit better... Purely subjective and unsubstantiated on my part, but you asked.

Alex McCusker: I've played Twilight Imperium twice. Very enjoyable with a lot of clever tricks. It takes a long time to play - 5 of us took 8 hours.

Todd Goff: I think CotE would be a good, light game. Play it the old way or with the new, Martin Wallace inspired rules. I'm not especially fond of space/sci-fi games anyway.

Peter Card: Ah well, the Martin Wallace element does make Conquest of the Empire more attractive. I may have to get it myself at Essen.

Pat Osika: Walt...Definitely get Conquest of the Empire. I got my copy last week and it is a winner. All the game bits are pre-bagged by color so no wasting time with sprues. The original game is pretty much intact except for using hit dice a la Battle Cry, so the age of super destructive catapults has finally ended. The COTE II rules look interesting involving card play and a time limit for the game but I haven't had a chance to try them yet. I admit to liking the original despite the quirks but the new version looks to be a nice improvement.

Jason Schmidt: The new rules (advanced rules) are supposed to be Struggle of Nations (Empires? I can't remember) in a new guise, and that seems to be a pretty well-recieved game both here and on BGG for what it's worth.

TS Wilde: CotE2 has had some positive noises in OOTW too. I'm definitely interested if the map really is more appealing in real life than in the rather garish online photos I've seen.

Pat Osika: Tom..The map is much better than it looks on the Eagle games site, one of those big 3' by 4' three section jobbies. I think you're gonna need a bigger table...

Peter Card: Snuggle of Empires is an excellent game, Martin's best I think, so you can't go far wrong with CotE(II) But, darn it, Twiglet Emporium is neat too.

and even though there were a few good arguments made for Twilight Imperium, my final decision was to purchase Conquest of the Empire.

I tend to like historicals over SF stuff, that's just my thing.. although I'm not solely a historical wargame type. That wasn't enough of an argument, though.. it was the long playing time associated with Twilight Imperium and the Martin Wallace factor that made up my mind.

So... a largish package is now heading my way on camelback.



I shall have a jolly birthday! I hope this gets here in time for International Games Week, as I want to bring my entire collection of plastic piece games.

For the Senate and People of Rome,

Mr. Nizz