Quoting Charlie Sheen: A first Look at Merchants and Marauders

Today I had to choose between being a pirate or a sailing merchant in a Pirate\Trade game set in the Caribbean during the Pirate\Colonization era. Of course, I choose being a pirate and it cost me the game, sort of.

My opponents drew me in by telling me that the game was a cross between a trade game and a wargame. Not only was it a cross between the two, but it was an EXCELLENT blend of merchant\delivery vs. Pirate attacks. The Game was Z-Man games' "Merchants and Marauders" and delivered a very satisfying afternoon. I can see how the game would move much more quickly once players learned the system and there is nothing too complex here.

Players get to choose whether they will act as merchants or pirates and both have benefits as well as drawbacks. The game has excellent balance between the two choices (usually made based on the skills of player's captain (randomly chosen at the beginning of the game). Each player has three actions on each turn which are either move, search for enemy ships, or conduct business in court. Players get Glory points (victory points) for delivering three of a commodity to a port where it is in demand, defeating an enemy in battle, or defeating a non-player ship (pirate or a National Navy).

The basic mechanics of the game are clean and easily comprehended. They offer a careful balance that prevents a player from doing too many things in one turn or jumping around getting multiple victory points per turn. A player can also purchase Victory Points at a cost of 10 each, but is limited to money he put into his stash (which he can only do at his home port) to do so and can only purchase a maximum of 5 points in this manner. This means a player has to earn 5 Victory points and then balance returning to his home port to stash his gold.

Combat is pretty neat. Players can shoot, board, or flee from a combat and various items assist. For example, everytime a player earns a Glory point he gets a glory card that has a special ability (usually a one time use) and ships can be upgraded to improve either its merchant or combat ability.

The deal breaker for some gamers will be the events. Each game turn begins with a random event card being flipped and read. One event brought war between Spain and England and one of my opponents was unable to enter the port of the opposing nationality to deliver the goods with the demand he needed. Another event brought storms and minimized the number of actions my opponents could perform on that turn. Other events brought in National naval forces that were looking for Pirates, or added non-player pirates. The random events added lots of flavor but I think to a staunch wargamer these events offered a great deal of luck factor and skewed the game to some extent. One player had the worst luck with these events almost always coming at the worst possible time for him and therefore he could not wait for the game to be over.

The most fun I had in the game was holding the lead for most of the game. This allowed me to taunt the other players by quoting Charlie Sheen and saying repeatedly "Winning." I did attempt to avoid calling my opponents "trolls" however.

I had a great time playing this game, but I think the luck factor would cause thie one to get old pretty fast. I can see how a couple of bad events could really leave a player feeling cheated. Still, I prefer events that actually have a chance of impacting the game in a strong way, so I think it is a game I will enjoy.

Player's Remorse- Not Buyer's Remorse

Internet shopping for used wargames has become an addiction for me. I browse through ebay regularly. I sort through hundreds of posts weekly on the for sale forum on Consimworld. The sad thing is that I keep buying games, often which I have no time to play. Recently, I purchased several CD-ROMs from Ebay containing older, out of print (and claimed to be in the public domain) Avalon Hill titles. Will I have time to even print these out, search for a cyberboard version of them, and play them.

Recent purchases have included Z-Man's "Campaign Manager 2008" (okay, not a wargame, but by one of my favorite designers, Jason Matthews of "Twilight Struggle" fame), MMP's "Shifting Sands", and an American Civil War game from Compass games that I cannot even recall the name of. I have a copy of Avalon Hill's "Afrika Korps" that I would love to play and its rules seem simple enough to learn in a short time, however, just having a place to set it up long enough to learn can be a challenge.

If I could only stop feeding this addiction, purchasing games I don't have time to play. However, the addiction spills over into the new game department. I have purchased a number of new games in the last year. GMT's remake of "Successors," and "Washington's War" are among the new, unpunched titles in my collection. (I have played Washington's War several times, but never with my own personal copy). GMT was selling UGG's "History of the Roman Empire" at such a steep discount that I ordered two copies and sent one to my brother, Johnny, with hopes of figuring it out and playing, perhaps via cyberboard. It seems to be a lot like the old "History of the World" only limited to the Roman Empire. Still, I've done little more than lovingly and longingly skim over the rules in hopes of being prepared to play.

I have an old copy of Avalon Hill's "Wizard Quest" that I have played once with my wife. We had a good time, but she was not persuaded to try it again. I created a simple rules summary so I could teach it to my usual gaming group, but one critic ruined it for me by telling one of the player is was "Risk! with Orcs!" Having never actually played "Risk!" I don't why this is such a terrible criticism, but it was enough to kill it the night that I tried to get the guys to try it.

Once in awhile I manage to "flip" a game via ebay or Consimworld. This offers me an excuse to continue my buying.. but the truth is, I would really like to play some of the games that are filling my collection so rapidly. Playing them is preferable to making money on them.

Cyberboard (or perhaps Vassal) offers me the opportunity to play long-distance opponents, but I have to go to all the trouble to downloading and setting up, and hoping I remember to save files, etc. If that was the biggest challenge, I'd do it more. However, the biggest challenge is visualizing a game. I find it difficult to visualize a game on the computer screen that I have not played in person. The rules and the movement and the goals just don't make sense to me. I guess this means I have a larger learning curve if trying to learn a game electronically instead of face to face.

My remorse is not being able to play more. Our game club meetings have become sporadic due to not finding a good, steady place to meet. For example, last month we were supposed to meet at the local game store and I showed up for the meeting (as did a number of others) only to discover that the game store management had made an error and scheduled a miniatures tournament at the same time our club was supposed to meet. It was an honest mistake, but will likely hurt attendance at meetings at the store in the future. The store is not the best venue due to space considerations (as well as the feeling that we ought to make a purchases while we are there since they are allowing us to meet there for free).

I guess that sums up today's whining and complaining. I just wish I had more time to play. That was true when I was a kid, too! Will I ever grow up?

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.

you Say You want an American Revolution (again!)

I've now played Washington's War two different times. As a longtime fan of its predecessor, We the People, I had the potential to be either WOWED or DISMAYED. In this case, I lean a bit more toward the WOW side.

For those who are unware, Washington's War is a reboot of Mark Herman's ground-breaking American Revolution based game of Avalon Hill's We the People . GMT games has done a wonderful job with the graphics and game components. The hard-backed board appears to be a new standard for most GMT products, replacing the folded poster sized maps. The player aid card provided is simply gorgeous , very well organized and utilitarian.


In both my games I played the American Side and in both my games I lost. This limited experience might lead some players to believe that the American side is weak, but I'll have to admit that my losses both stemmed from a lack of comprehension of rules and mechanics and inability to utilize them to my advantage.

Players who are familiar with the original We the People can pick this one up and play it almost immediately. There are three major differences. First, the combat system has been completely revamped. Sadly, for me, the Battle Cards (a major innovation first introduced in We the People) are gone. Now, combat is won by the highest die roll with a number of modifiers. In regards to combat, I have to state that the Americans have to beware that the Brits have a slight edge in most cases, especially if they have the British regulars-which they usually do. The British side also gets a ton of reinforcements, especially in the early turns of the war. The second major difference is the "pick up" event cards. If an opponent discards one of your events you can play an ops card to pick up and play that event. The third change is that a player can play a battle card and after the combat he is permitted to draw a replacement card for his hand. This adds a new strategy-- fighting for the express purpose of using a battle card that may or may not help in order to draw another card and maybe improve your hand.

When I get a few more plays of this one under my belt I'll share more. At this time, I have to state my opinion that Washington's War is a really good game. After a few more plays I may revise that opinion, but thus far I have enjoyed the game and have a very positive regard for it.

In today's game, the war ended in 1781 (due to a mandatory card play) and I held 4 colonies while my opponent held 9. A clear loss, and if the war had gone further it would have been even worse for my side. I had lost almost all of my combat units due to Washington's inability to defeat a force entrenched in Philadelphia. Today, war was truly Hell for the Americans... we only hope that the next time I roll this one out I'll be able to turn those lobsterbacks into the sea.

How to Improve on Saint Petersburg

I don't know about you, but I am not a fan of games where the entire game is wrapped up in taking turns making choices of offered items. For example, I strongly dislike Saint Petersburg, a game by Rio Grande games that, like Alea's Puerto Rico, is more of an exercise in frustration than an evening of fun.

I much prefer games where players get a chance. After playing Puerto Rico a number of times with cut-throat players I got fed up with other players taking the "job" that did not really help them, but would've greatly benefited me. Saint Petersburg is a bit more of the same. Players end up "hiring" cards (which represent various vocational characters or buildings). Many times, this means another player will make a selection just to prevent another player from taking that card. All of this based on a revolving turn order in which each player will go first in one of the four phases.

At least wargames have objectives that can be fought over. In games like Saint Petersburg a player is simple stuck with the luck of the turn order and can almost rest assured that the player who makes his selection/purchase will take the card that he wants. No fighting over it. No combat, just picking what someone else wants. The only actual restrain is cost.

So, I was thinking.. how could one improve Saint Petersburg. I've got several untested ideas I'll throw out. I haven't been able to convince my friends that like this game to try them yet, but if they want me to keep playing they will have to at least experiment with one or more of them.

ASSASINATION

First, I would propose an assasin variant. Perhaps a player could pay a certain amount to have another player's card assasinated. The cost of the assasination should be more expensive than the actual purchase of the card. I would suggest trying such a variant where the cost of an assasination would be COST + 3 of the card. So if a card initially cost 12 for a player to purchase, another player could pay 15 and destroy it. This action would, of course, be instead of making a purchase of a card.

DUEL

Or perhaps we could propose a duel variant. A player could, instead of purchasing a card, use on of his orange character cards to challenge another player's orange character card to a duel. The challenging card would have to be of equal or lessor cost of the card being challenged. Then, both players roll a 6 sided-die. High die roll wins and the losing card is eliminated OR "reincarnated" to the board, immediately available for purchase. Perhaps a die roll modifier should be added to prevent a 4 value character from challenging a 10 value character. Give a +1 to the die roll for the difference between values to the player with the highest value character. Perhaps a "Fine" for dueling should be paid by the loser to the bank.

WAR

How about an all out War? During the orange phase, a player could pay something like 10 and declare an attack on another player. Both players add up the value (cost + VP's) on the orange cards they wish to send into the battle. Each player rolls 2 six-sided dice and adds that result to their value. Player with the highest total value wins. The losing player must eliminate orange cards equal to the difference between the totals, not to exceed the number of cards he sent into battle. Therefore, a player who lost that only sent one card into the battle would only lose one card. The attacking player will not be able to count the victory points or collect money for cards that were in battle for that phase. The attacking player would have to declare which cards were going into battle. This system could be more throughly explored, adding rules for losing green cards in place of orange cards, etc.

All I am saying is that players deserve a fighting chance. Turn order should not determine the outcome of a game. Far too often, that is the case in Saint Petersburg, and I'm tired of seeing my ship fail to come in over and over and over.

I'd also like to add that while I loathe Puerto Rico, I thoroughly enjoy its sister game San Juan. Go figure!

Napoleonic Miniatures for Beginners!

I got my first taste of "Napoleon's War" from Worthington Games last weekend and thought I would share my initial thinking. My opponent and I played from the first scenarios of this series, offered in a boxed set called "Napoleon's War: The Hundred Days." Rules range from simple to intermediate and then to advance, but honestly, there were no complex rules in the game. A basic 8 page rules set that lets the players scan and play is provided.

The maps have large hexes (similar to Avalon Hill's Battlecry!) and the terrain is essential to the strategy of both defensive and offensive players. On the Ligny map (shown above) the ridges played a huge role in combat. First, it blocked line of sight so that offensively players could not fire over it. Second, when shooting at a unit on the Ridge the attacker received one less die to cast. Third, a unit can shoot or move, but not both. Therefore, a unit moving onto a ridge becomes a sitting duck for units sitting on the other side. The unit moving onto the ridge will be fired upon before getting a chance to shoot. At least twice during our two games I moved a unit onto the Ridge in hopes of getting a shot at an opponent and then my opponent got lucky with his limited number of dice, rolling two sixes and thus eliminating my artillery unit with one volley. Artillery units may not be rebuilt.

The miniatures are simple plastic miniatures. The set we played with featured only two colors, grey and blue. I imagine other colors will be added in other expansions, judging by the photo above which comes from the Worthington Games website. The pieces were utilitarian, meaning they they were not works of art but worked well for gaming purposes.

I mentioned that artillery may not be rebuilt. Leaders, however, may "rally" a wounded unit (assuming the leader began the turn in the spot with the unit and that the unit or leader will not do anything else on that turn). It isn't automatic, a die roll is compared to the current morale of the hex, but if successful a figure that matches the unit being rallied is placed back into the hex.

Cavalry can charge and attack, but only if they are not "engaged" (in contact with an enemy unit) at the beginning of the turn. We did have problems interpreting the "Cannot shock combat, i.e. melee, across a stream" rule. The problem? Does that mean you cannot charge across a stream and move two hexes and shock, or does it only mean you cannot shock across a hex into a hex that is adjacent to the same stream? We took the most restrictive interpretation meaning that Cavalry could not shock if they crossed a stream on that turn. When Cavalry charges infantry, the infantry have a chance to form a square by rolling against their morale. If they are successful it becomes harder for Cavalry to effectively hit them. However, then the infantry is still in the square formation and the only thing that they can do on their next turn is fire at greatly reduced effect (only getting 1 die) or unform the square, which of course makes them vulnerable to another attack.

The system using a varying number of action points for each side. It costs one action point to move, shoot, melee (shock) rally, etc. At the beginning of the turn, a player is normally granted 4 action points and then rolls a die. Depending on the die roll, the player may have 5, 6 or 7 action points. (7 was the maximum). My opponent, a pleasant fellow who always has problems with hot and cold dice, seemed to always be hot when rolling for his extra command points and had 7 points per turn for nearly the entire game. I was lucky to have 5 most turns and only managed to obtain 7 two or three times in a twenty round game.

Combat is normally conducted using 3 dice. Normal rolls of 6's count as hits. Artillery will hit on 5's and 6's if they are adjacent. Cavalry can shock and obtain hits on 4's, 5's and 6's. A unit attacking a unit in some types of terrain will only be permitted to roll two dice instead of the normal 3.

This turned out to be a neat system and I really enjoyed the game. In a three hour period we managed to play the game twice. Setup is very simple because each map has a letter indicating what units go in that hex. There were minimal rules lookup and the game moved quickly once we knew the basics of movement and combat. We used the simple rules for the first game and intermediate rules for the second game.

If you're looking for a simple miniature game, I don't think it gets any simpler than this. I can easily see players substituting their painted miniatures for the plastic pieces and playing this one over and over again. Simple and very action-filled. Also, this would make a good introductory wargame for players about age 10 and up. Players who like games like "Battlecry" or "Memoir '44" or "Commmand and Colors" will definitely want to play this one.

I'm old, but I don't want to wear glasses to read those rules!

Recently I was looking for a good five player game to play in our local gaming group. Since I prefer Wargames over Euro style games I am really tired of St. Petersberg, which I don't enjoy at all. So, I pulled out a copy of Avalon Hill's "Wizard's Quest" which I view as sort of a cross between a Euro and a wargame. Since it had been a very long time since I have played this classic (except a computer version I downloaded from somewhere) I felt it was probably wise fro me to look over the rules.

The rules for the game aren't really complex. However, I decided to create a quick start summary of the rules for my friends who had not played before. As I went through the rules I discovered some very interesting factors. I discovered two problems with the rules as I viewed them.

The first problem was the miniature type face on the printed page. I mean, I'm fifty-two years old, and the font used was proabably the correct size for the adventurers in Isaac Asimov's classic novel "Fantastic Voyage." I pulled out several other Avalon Hill titles from this period and discovered that indeed, almost all of the typeface used for these games were teensy-weensy.

As I proceeded with my project I found the reason for such a small typeface. The author(s) of the rules had written everything in such a wordy format that they took twenty-five words to say what could be communicated in ten or twelve. My 12 point font quickstart came in at 3.5 pages with minimal margins (top and bottom) and I feel that I communicated everything that was in the rules fairly thoroughly. In fact, when our group gets together I am certain that the rules summary I wrote will be pretty much all that is necessary to play the game.

Over the years, I have been daunted by rules for other Avalon Hill games. I never understood "Up Front" at all. I finally sold my copies of the game as unplayable, though I know that many players manage to play and derive great pleasure. I've got a copy of "Mosby's Raiders" that proved to be an exercise in frustration the one time I set the game up and tried to comprehend it. However, viewing the rules for "Arika Korps" was hardly daunting at all (except for the small print used).

I understand that writing rules is a complex operation. However, using more words is not necessarily better. At least the rules for "Wizard's Quest" were well organized and proceeded properly from phase to phase of the game. They were not confusing at all.

Over the next few weeks I'm going to pull out a few more of these beloved titles and see if I have avoided them because of small print or incomprehensible rules.

Now if I can just get the other guys in my group interested in a game that features FRENZYING ORCS!