Dude! Take Your Turn!
A Gaming Life
Combat Commander – After Action Report – Scenario 61 – Surrender is Out of the Question!
The fickle finger of fate.
Sometimes she’s good to you and the finger has chocolate on it.
Sometimes she’s bad to you and you don’t want to taste what’s on it.
And sometimes she’s both.
Which can be a thing of nightmares, actually.
That sums up my Saturday morning!
Welcome to another adventure from the Combat Commander ladder, that monthly tournament of one of the greatest games out there administered by the tremendous Patrick Pence, he of Patrick’s Tactics & Tutorials fame.
After losing last month, I was hoping to get back to my winning ways this month.
This month’s scenario is Surrender is Out of the Question! (the exclamation mark is in the scenario title), a scenario from the Normandy battle pack and it uses some of the Normandy rules as well.
It’s a few weeks after the Normandy invasion by Allied forces and in a brilliant pincer move, they’ve surrounded a whole bunch of German units.
A contingent of Germans attempt to break out of the encirclement by attacking elements of the 1st Polish Armored Division, and chaos ensues.
My opponent this month was Eric P, somebody else who I have never played on the ladder before.
Here’s the setup.
(Don’t forget you can click on a picture to blow it up)
The Poles (Eric – tan and using the British deck of cards) set up on the hill that they’ve recently taken while the Germans (Me – grey) are attempting to rush past (or perhaps even eliminate) the Poles.
The Poles have a series of Wire and Trenches and not very many units.
The Germans have a bunch of units with more coming in on Time 1 and Time 2.
The Germans are the Attacker (6 cards) and the Poles are the Defender (4 cards)
Exit points are doubled as well.
The scenario uses both the Normandy rules and the Night rules, which add a whole bunch of things.
First, artillery calling smoke immediately breaks the radio (due to low ammo supplies). I’m the only one who had a radio capable of smoke, though.
The hedges are +2 to cover and movement instead of +1.
Roads do not have a negative cover effect.
Night rules, there is a hindrance between firer and target equal to the range between them.
What’s worst, though, is that neither side can just discard a few cards.
If you discard a card, you have to discard your whole hand!
That really bit both of us a few times this game.
There are other effects, but they didn’t really impact the game any.
However, some scenario special rules include the German artillery being basically off-board Tiger tanks. This means that the area of effect is just one hex, not a spread like most artillery.
The other special rules didn’t matter in our game.
So who got horribly fingered by fate?
(Editor: “Ewwwwww”)
Let’s find out!
Read MoreNew to Me – November 2024
At last, almost a week late, one of the probably longest posts I’ve written, because there are so many freakin’ games on it!
Yes, this is the list of the eleven (!) new to me games I played in November 2024.
December is not looking high on the new to me list considering the holidays and everything, so if you’re interested in new to me games (I mean my new to me games), absorb this one because next month’s post is going to be pretty lean!
The Cult of the New to Me was really happy with this month’s collection of games, because there were five games that are 10 years old or older.
Yes, I mean really happy.
I’ll bet you didn’t know we even had that many members, did you!
Ok, I didn’t either. I think maybe some brought friends?
Or maybe Taylor Swift was in the house and I just didn’t notice.
Anyway, sure there are some 2024 games on here too (including one that I have no desire to play again), but that’s not a bad ratio!
So without further ado (all of my ado was shaved and sold for all of its wool anyway), let’s get this monster started!
Read MoreArcs Coming to Digital from Dire Wolf Games in 2026
I didn’t think I’d be posting today, but getting an email from Dire Wolf Digital kind of forced me to!
One of the big sensations currently in the boardgaming world is Arcs from Leder Games.
Designed by Cole Wehrle with artwork by Kyle Ferrin, Leder Games published this game this last Summer (2024 for those reading in the future).
I have sadly not played it, but I watched the Heavy Cardboard playthrough and it looks like a fascinating game, with lots of moving parts and intrigue.
Let’s blurb it:
“Arcs is a sharp sci-fi strategy game for 2–4 players, set in a dark yet silly universe. Players represent officials from a distant, decaying and neglectful Empire who are now free to vie for dominance whether through battle, gathering scarce resources or diplomatic intrigue. Ready yourself for dramatic twists and turns as you launch into this galactic struggle.
A deck of cards in 4 suits with ranks from 1-7 (2-6 for less than 4 players) defines the action selection system. These cards a played in a trick-taking adjacent system to select actions, take the initiative and declare Ambitions. The 3 declared Ambitions are what will score in that deal. Timing is everything. Bad hands must be mitigated by careful card play and benefitting from other players’ card play.”
Today, Dire Wolf Digital announced that they will be doing a digital version of the game, coming out in 2026!
The initial Early Access on Steam is scheduled for the first half of the year, but like the wonderful Root adaptation, it will release on other platforms later in the year.
After hitting it out of the park recently with Clank, Dune: Imperium, and with Ark Nova coming out tomorrow, Dire Wolf is really unloading with both barrels.
I hope to have actually played Arcs prior to 2026, but if not, this will be the first way I’ll be playing it!
Are you excited about this?
Have you played Arcs yet?
If so, what did you think?
Let me know in the comments.
November 2024 Gaming
With Bottoscon at the beginning of the month, you knew that November would be chock full of gaming goodness.
And it was!
Maybe not quite as much as might have been otherwise, since we missed a Sunday game day and the next one had just one (really long) play of a game in it, and not a lot of work gaming was done, but it was still very full.
Four days at a convention will do that.
Here’s what I played in November.
And here’s that shown in grid-format! With Qwixx and Cover Your A$$ets chopped off because I played 27 whole games in November!
That was a lot.
Many thanks to the wonderful Boardgame Stats for the ability to track all of this!
What were some of the highlights?
I’ll summarize since there were actually a lot of them.
Read MoreFriday Night Shots – Boardgame Arena
I know what you’re thinking.
You’re thinking “Dave, you really shouldn’t wear green because it really makes you look hideous.”
And I would agree with that!
You’re also thinking “Dave, what’s this? Two Friday Night Shots posts in a row? What’s gotten into you?”
And I would respond with “Inspiration, baby! Inspiration.”
Also the realization that I really need to keep writing or my writing ability will atrophy.
So anyway, welcome back to the bar!
Not much has changed since you were just here last week, but I think I may have the jukebox issues ironed out.
We’ll see.
Pull up a chair and let me pour you a drink of whatever you like.
What the hell is that?
Sorry, it looks like the jukebox repairs didn’t take.
Anyway, tonight I wanted to talk about Boardgame Arena and its renaissance.
No, not that renaissance!
Read MoreWho the Heck is Ix? – App Expansion Review – Dune Imperium: the Rise of Ix
If you’re a boardgamer and you haven’t heard of Dune: Imperium, what rock have you been hiding under?
I know that Boardgame Geek is not the end-all and be-all of board games, the game itself is currently ranked 6th and the new “version” of it (Dune: Imperium – Uprising) is currently 25th.
Two versions of the same game (with some differences of course) are both in the Top 25!
That’s a testament to how popular the game is (yes, rankings don’t indicate quality, etc).
I’ve played the board game twice on the table and I do really like it, but I have many more plays of the app.
In fact, I reviewed the game (and the Early Access app) earlier, so I wanted to concentrate on the first expansion that has now been released for the app: Rise of Ix.
As with my early access review (nothing much of which has changed, except some app oddities that I will mention below), this is going to be a review of both the app as well as the expansion itself.
The expansion adds some really cool aspects to the game, including some of what the base game was missing: removing cards from your deck and cycling through cards in your deck.
The expansion (and game) were designed by Paul Dennen with artwork by Clay Brooks, Raul Ramos and Nate Storm. Rise of Ix was published on the table in 2022 and just released in the app a couple of months ago in 2024 (for those who are reading this in the future).
Let’s take a look!
Read MoreTwo-Steppin’ in the Woods – Forest Shuffle Review
Tableau-building card games are becoming all the rage.
Or maybe they’ve been the rage and I just never noticed?
(Editor: “Doesn’t say much for your observational skills, does it?”)
One thing I haven’t seen much of, however, are tableau-building games where you are combining cards in certain ways.
Yes, set collection is a thing, but not in the way Forest Shuffle does it.
Designed by Kosch with artwork by Toni Llobet, Judit Piella, this game was published by Lookout Games in 2023.
In the game, you’re building (or growing, I guess) your own forest and hoping to attract various fauna and flora into it in order to score a lot of points.
The mechanism for doing this is drawing and playing cards to your forest, both trees that provide the basis for everything else and then the animals and plants that will gather around them.
The combination of all this makes a rather interesting-looking tableau!
Read MoreFriday Night Shots – Patreon
Welcome back to the bar!
It’s been a month, but I’m happy to welcome you back.
It’s always nice to get just a little bit of income from it, since nobody else really comes in here.
Other than Bob in the back, who’s sharing a drink they call loneliness, but for some reason he’s drinking it alone so I’m not sure what that’s about.
That kind of defeats the purpose!
Anyway, have a seat and let me pour you a drink or two so I can make something like $10 tonight.
Which would be a banner evening!
The jukebox is still on the fritz, though. It keeps on playing Bobby Brown even though I know I removed him from the playlist a long time ago.
I think it’s haunted!
Or maybe I’m just tired.
Anyway, there are a ton of gaming Patreons out there, and after joining a new one last night, I thought I would talk about some of them!
Read MoreDelving the Virtual Depths – Clank app review
(1/14/25: This issue appears to have been fixed! A while back, actually, in December. Sorry for being late to report that. Not that anybody’s looking at this review anyway…)
(11/28/24: It appears that Clank is suffering from the same asynchronous multiplayer problem that Dune: Imperium suffers from (unless the recent update actually fixed that game. Other players, except perhaps the first one, can’t view the results! Multiple friends have reported this issue, though one person was able to see the results, so it may be the first person can see them but not the others. This really needs to be fixed here too)
Dire Wolf Digital has made some amazing games, both for the tabletop as well as app versions of tabletop games.
Sometimes it’s just the virtual edition of a great board game, like the recently-released Cascadia.
Sometimes it’s just a tabletop game like the recently-released Wild Tiled West.
But sometimes it’s both, as they make the virtual version of their own game!
Clank was the first of many iterations of a great combination of deck-building games and moving around a board. It came out in 2016 and was designed by Paul Dennen with artwork by Rayph Beisner, Raul Ramos and Nate Storm. It was published by Dire Wolf Digital and Renegade Game Studios.
A couple of weeks ago, Dire Wolf published the mobile version (iOS and Android) as well as brought the Steam version out of Early Access, making it accessible to a lot of people.
Before I get started, I have to admit that I do prefer Clank in Space to this one, but the original fantasy game does have some attractions (and a bunch of expansions which will hopefully make their way to the digital platform at some point).
What are they?
Let’s find out!
Read MoreNew Garphill Games Kickstarter – Cards! And Other Things
(Edit: It appears that the promos in the 5-Year Anniversary Pack for Shipwrights of the North Sea are direct reprints and not compatible with Shipwrights of the North Sea: Redux. Still, it’s only 9 cards and the rest of the promos in that batch look really cool, so I’m not going to change my pledge.)
Today, Garphill Games opened an 8-day Kickstarter (though this time they will actually use a Pledge Manger for late pledges, though not for letting you add things to your pledge later.
Make sure your pledge is correct if you are going to do it now.
I was a bit torn at first, but there is some cool stuff in there.
First, the stuff I didn’t go for.
They are offering two sets of playing cards with artwork from all of the Medieval trilogies.
They’re also offering the Raiders of the North Sea playmat, the Raiders solo system, and the North Sea RuneSaga.
I wasn’t interested in those, but here’s what I did just pledge for.
One of the sometimes irritating things about Paladins of the West Kingdom is the Suspicion cards and how everybody is drawing from the same deck. One person might get lucky every time they draw a Suspicion card and get 2 silver, while others might get unlucky and get 0 silver because the 2 silver cards are already out of circulation (you do keep the Suspicion card until you have to discard it).
In this Kickstarter, there are individual Suspicion card decks so that won’t happen!
You could still get unlucky in your draws, but you won’t be affected by what other people have drawn and kept. Those 2-silver cards won’t be out of the deck unless you kept them.
In addition, you can buy every promo card for their North Sea and West Kingdom games that wasn’t part of the original Kickstarters in individual packs so you can pick and choose.
Did you back all of the Dice Tower Kickstarters and so already get those promos?
You don’t need to get them again!
I bought every promo pack except the one that’s exclusively for Raiders of the North Sea (mainly because I haven’t played that in ages, though I want to!).
So, basically I spent around $96 Canadian for about 135 promo cards and Suspicion cards.
Was that stupid?
If so, I don’t want to be smart.
The Kickstarter ends in 8 days so if you want to get in on this action, you better hurry!
Though at least there is a late Pledge Manager this time.
Oh, I almost forgot.
Garphill mention.
Yep, and it’s not even Friday.
Have a good night!
Dude! Take Your Turn! 