We all live in a non-yellow Submarine!

Imagine being on a submarine where everything is going wrong! The oxygen level is dropping, the atmospheric pressure is increasing, and heat from a malfunctioning reactor is becoming intense. In addition, some compartments are flooding, others are on fire, and your fellow crew members have got into the captain's store of "grog" and are passing out. That would be the premise of Fantasy Flight Game's "Red November" a cooperative game from their silver line of smaller, less expensive games.

I guess I should begin by saying that I normally don't care for cooperative games. I like games that let me "stick it to the other guy" and that offer fierce competition. However, Red November intrigues me because its system reminds me of an addictive computer game where the player moved crates around. As the player moved crates around he either improved or harmed his situtation and ability to complete the mission. Red November offers the same challenge. It seems like the more the player does to resolve problems the more problems seem to pop up.



The Submarine board shown above is small and if you note the track around the edge, it is very difficult to use that mini-track. This was the biggest annoyance in the game, so I thought I would get that complaint out of the way. On each turn, the player can move about freely and even choose to fix problems, etc. How many minutes the player decides to use to repair a problem becomes a target number. For example, if a player choose to spend 5 minutes attempting to repair the reactor he would have a 50% chance of accomplishing this fix by rolling a five or less on a ten sided die. Here's where the really tricky part comes in... The more time he spends trying to accomplish this task, the more time marches on. As the time marker is tracked in minutes, almost every other space on the track has an event card. Events can range from the "respite" card (nothing happens.. and that's good) to a random fire breaking out, a hatch becoming jammed, missile malfunction, oxygen disaster track increasing, reactor heating up, pressure increasing, etc. Even sudden death events occur which set up a ten minute track window of resolving a problem or dying immediately. Players have to balance the use of time and the urgency of a repair because as time marches on those events keep happening. By the way, a failed repair doesn't make matters worse, it just allows time to keep on slipping into a future filled with more and more frustrating events.


Tiles represent objects that the players find to assist them in their tasks. For example, a crowbar gives a postiive modifier to unjamming a hatch. A fire extinguisher allows the player to put out a fire (so does grog, but we will get to that in a moment. One item, the lucky charm, allows a player to use up minutes but skip drawing new event cards. Events often cause a player (or all players) to discard tiles (and they are out of the game until all tiles are drawn.

Players can go to the Captain's quarters in order to draw grog tiles. Grog gives the player the fortitude to enter a room that is on fire and attempt to put the fire out. The fire extinguisher does the same thing but without the intoxicating result. A player who uses his grog (for a nice die modifier in fighting a fire) also risks becoming inebriated. When he uses the grog he indicates with his character card the inebriation status (levels 1-4) of his character. At the end of his turn he does a faint check by drawing an event card. If the inebriation number is equal to or less than the number on the card, the character passes out and ten minutes are added to the chart. This can and does happen at the worst moments. Sometimes, it causes the "ghost marker" to cross the minute where a catastrophic game ending event occurs. In one game, a fire fighting gnome used grog to fight a fire and passed out, causing the marker to go over the missile malfunction and BOOM!!! Game over.

This is the place where players either will love or hate the game. Personally, I like the uncertainty and inability to completely game the system. I like a game that has enough strategy to keep a player interested with enough wacky random stuff to keep the game uncertain. On the other hand, an individual gnome can pass out and get burned up and die halfway through the game, and it is not fun to get shut out of a game. The rule booklet suggests an optional rule for players who don't like getting eliminated from a game. Since games are social, elimination is sometimes not the best option.

I found "Red November" to be a quirky niche game. I would love to see someone program this one for the computer. It would be a great solitaire computer game.

Dumbhead David Plays Another Napoleonic Game

I encourage those of you interested in a BIG Napoleonic miniatures game to direct your browser to www.fantasyflightgames.com and check out Battles of Napoleon. This game has a hefty price tag but there is a lot of game in the box. Multiple scenarios, hard mounted map boards, and neat miniatures. There has been some flap over on fantasy flgiht's message board over some misprinted cards (U.S. buyers can get a replacement deck at no cost and we played with the replacement cards!) The cards are quite beautiful, very nice glossy finish with quality artwork. The miniatures are nice, but the horseman needed to be glued to the saddle seats.


Still, there was lots of flavor in the game, most of it centering around what players could do and when they could do it. An interesting initative system uses a number of chits. The chits have numbers on them. A player may attempt to "change orders" for a unit in an attempt to obtain a lower number. He also may end up with a higher number that forces that particular unit to move or attack later in the turn. Changing orders is not a certain thing, however. Communicating with subordinate generals during the heat of a battle isn't always easy. Sometimes, they are out of reach and sometimes they just don't listen. Therefore, a die roll result of 11 (the standard success number in this game) is required to change orders. Oh, and the game only comes with 10 sided dice. Obviously, a number of modifiers are added for almost everything.

Formations count in this game. Players can be in column, in line, or form a square against a cavalry charge. Each formation governs some of the modifiers and permits or restricts movement.

On top of the other stuff thrown in that make this game cool is the combat system. players fire and\or melee and then add up the modifiers to combine with their die roll. An attack of a modified 11 is considered a success. There is no complex battle chart and no automatic hits. The attacker flips over the top card of the event deck and checks the result (indicated by an icon) based on the actual number of his modified roll. Results are more devastating with larger die roll results, but the various icons offer results.

The event cards are pretty cool. I had one in my hand that would have won me the game I played today, and I played it at the wrong time. My French troops had one of the three Victory hexes under control and on the last turn was in position to take the second one. In order to prevent the British from slipping in and taking that hex, I meleed an adjacent unit and got a result > 11. I was overjoyed.. it was the result I needed to play the card and move those Brits further away and they could not take the square. Then I had another melee with a result greater than 11 and could have forced his unit OFF of the Victory hex and moved onto it and would've controlled two of the three victory hexes... which would have won me the game since it was the last turn. A typical Dumbhead David move, I assure you!!!

I've decided I like miniature games, but don't care for handling a tape measure or yeardsitck around a gaming table with miniatures. Typical Dumbhead David move # 2 would be knocking over miniatures with the measuring implement. A Napoleonic battlefield should never look like a nuclear bomb went off on it or like Godzilla just stomped through. This is especially bad because I am not artistic at all and can't paint minis worth a darn. Since my gaming buddies CAN and actually CARE about all the hard work they have put into painting miniature figures they tend to become a bit cranky when this happens in a game.

So this game offers a huge gaming experience without the measuring, without the painting (though I am sure that there are some artistic fellows who will paint theirs) and without the constant purchases to keep adding to a collection. In other words, the $99.00 retail box is HUGE and OVERSIZED and packed with a lot of great, great stuff.

This game also offers a variety of rules-- we played with the simplest rules and had a great time, but I can sure see that the optional rules add even more depth and Napoleonic flavor.

Finally, while the game may look like a Port of Memoir '44, Battlecry, etc. it is not. There is much more depth here and I don't think players will be disappointed.

Is Conan Really A Barbarian?

"Age of Conan" is an interesting hybrid of Eurogame and wargame. The game was more of a Euro-style game than a wargame, but I wasn't disappointed in the wargame elements. The game is published by Nexus and Fantasy Flight Games.

The game is divided into three "ages." Each epic age is divided into four adventures. These adventures vary in length but really serve as a static method of determining when a scoring round begins. There are four adventures and when the final adventure of an "age" is completed, a scoring round occurs. Players can see how close they are to that scoring round at all times. It may take more or less turns in order to complete an adventure. When a new adventure is placed a number of tiles based on the adventure card (usually 3-4 in our game) are placed on the board. The adventure is over when the last of those tiles is claimed.

Those tokens are divided into several different categories that have no real bearing on the game except players that collect the most tokens in a particular category earn bonus points at the conclusion of the game. There are several ways to claim these tokens. A player may take a fate die with the Conan emblem on it in order to gain a token. The player who controls Conan earns one of these tokens by moving Conan towards the destination revealed on the current adventure card.

One player will control Conan until the completion of an adventure. At that point, players have chits and cards in which they bid in order to control Conan. The highest bidder (card value + chit value) earns the privilege of controlling Conan. All bidders lose the cards and the chits that they used to bid with. When I say "lose" I mean that the cards return to the deck and the chits are removed from the game. However, there some really interesting factors to be applied. If a player bids using his 3 chit he may keep that chit. If a player bids using his zero chit, the other chits are placed back in the game and available for his use.

The player who controls Conan gets to move the Conan figure at the beginning of each of his turns. If the player moves Conan towards the current adventure destination he obtains an adventure token. However, he may choose to move Conan to a destination that is away from that destination which discards the adventure token. He might wish to do this so that he can enlist Conan into one of his armies in order to earn a combat bonus. He might also be attempting to prevent his opponents from crowning Conan as King in the final age. He may also be attempting to move Conan into his home province so that he himself can crown Conan. An attempt to crown Conan may not succeed. In fact, if the player is unable to crown Conan (by having him in his home province and having the most adventure tokens in a particular category) then Conan slays the player and he is immediately eliminated from the game. Crowning Conan does not assure a victory, but the bonus points certainly do help.

All actions in the game are determined by a choice from the fate dice. Unlike some of the Euro style games that I strongly dislike where a player may be left with a choice that cannot help him in any shape form or fashion (Puerto Rico) every choice helps the player. Fate dice have symbols on them and players take turns choosing one of the fate dice (as rolled) until they are all used up and they are immediately rerolled. Players are limited in their choices by the icons that were rolled on the seven fate dice. The military icon allows a player to build a military unit, move armies, or attack with armies. The Intrigue icon allows a player to establish a diplomatic alliance with a neutral territory, or to send a diplomat to an opponent's territory and obtain gold. A court action allows a player to draw new cards either from his own deck or the common strategy deck.

Cards play an important part of this game. Adventure cards define the length and locations of a Conan adventure. Each player power has his own customized deck of cards which are built towards specific strengths of that power. Another set of cards provide extra objectives. (At the end of an adventure players check to see if they met any of those objectives and earn extra victory points.) Strategy cards may provide a bonus for a battle or an intrigue action, but also may be used in bidding for Conan at the beginning of an adventure.

However, the center point of the game is the conquering of territories via a campaign. Most areas have multiple areas of terrain. A Player must beat the enemy strength in the first terrain area before moving on to the next. Therefore, a player may need to take multiple turns to defeat a neutral territory. He may also choose to "force march" and continue a campaign by eliminating one of his army units and continuing the fight.

Our game did not see very much player attacking other players and perhaps we played a bit too conservatively. The game system rewards players who conquer enemy armies with Crom tokens (this is not the case in conquering neutral territories) and the player with the most of these tokens at the end of the game earns extra victory points.

Battles are fought using specialty dice created for the game. They have multiple icons that I won't take the time to explain except to state that at times player will play strategy cards which allow them to earn a "hit" result on icons that normally would count as misses. This made the game more interesting because we weren't just comparing numbers like one through six, but had to look carefully at each icon to determine whether it counted as a hit or not.

We took about four hours to play this game, but this included having rules explained to us. I can see the game being played easily in 2 or 2.5 hours. This also would have been easier if the rules and player reference cards were more in sync. Some steps in the rules were in a different order than on the player card. Also, we had difficulty with some of the cards which referred to moving into and attacking a friendly area. Why would a player want to attack an area that was friendly to himself? We finally decided that there has to be some sort of problem with translation, but this did cause several short delays.

I believe all four players enjoyed the game and are anxious to play it again. My buddy, Mark Kazmarek, stated that he was glad he had ordered the game because he really enjoyed it. There are lots of things to do in this game and multiple ways to win. I don't believe any player lacked the opportunity to win the game. There are lots of fiddly little components and plastic miniatures, towers, and cities. The game is chocked full of cards and thick cardboard chits and tokens. I believe it would be hard for an owner of this game to claim that he did not get his money's worth.

You don't have to read the Conan books to enjoy this game, but it probably might add to its flavor. If he were still around, Robert E. Howard would likely be more thrilled with this incarnation of Conan than any of Arnold's movies featuring the mighty warrior.