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A Gaming Life
June 2023 Gaming
With Father’s Day coming in June (here’s a link to the Father’s Day post I made in 2019, the first Father’s Day after my dad passed away), meaning that another Sunday Game Day was cancelled (or moved, but I chose to skip it), I figured that my June gaming would be just as bad, if not worse, then my May gaming.
But that wasn’t the case!
I actually got 20 plays in of 15 games, beating out last month by one play and four games.
I also played five “new to me” games, which I’ll be detailing in my monthly post later this weekend or early next week.
Here are the games I played in grid form (thanks to Boardgame Stats for these amazing statistics!)
A couple of things helped get me the increase.
More about that after the break.
Read MoreReview – Charioteer
There’s something about the Roman Circus Maximus, where chariot races were held, that just brings a thrill to me when I think about it.
Maybe it was owning the old Avalon Hill game of the same name at one point?
Maybe it was going to various game conventions and having a huge chariot racing game going, with a crowd around it, all chanting “Flip! Flip! Flip! Flip!”
Or maybe it’s Charlton Heston.
Either way, chariot racing is one of those things, like Debbie Gibson back when I was a teenager, that makes me smile.
That’s why I was excited when GMT announced a new game from Matt Calkins (designer of the classic Sekigahara, which sadly I have never played) that was all about chariot racing!
Charioteer was finally released in 2022 by GMT Games. Designed by Calkins, it has artwork by Donal Hegarty and Kurt Miller.
And it has a simply gorgeous cover.
Sadly, the rest of the presentation isn’t nearly as good.
But I’m getting ahead of myself a bit.
So let’s catch up to myself!
Read MoreInferno: Guelphs & Ghibellines – Storage Solution from Rails on Board
With taking an unofficial break last week, it’s time for another great storage solution from Cube4Me and Rails on Board.
This one I purchased a while back but am just now getting it written about.
Inferno: Guelphs & Ghibellines Vie for Tuscany, 1259 – 1261 (no, I won’t be writing all that out again) is the third in the Levy & Campaign series of games published by GMT Games. It was designed by Enrico Acerbi and Volko Ruhnke.
And much like its predecessor, Almoravid (no, I’m not typing the subtitles! You can’t make me!), there are a shit-ton of pieces in it (is this word in Webster’s yet?)
With all of that, you know a good storage solution will really help you get it out on the table a lot faster than just baggies.
This isn’t one of the ones I was complaining about.
Read MoreFriday Night Shots – Pre-Order Extravaganza!
Welcome back! Belly up to the bar and let me get you a drink of some kind.
Doesn’t have to be booze.
It’s Friday again.
The week has kind of flown by, though that could be because it feels like I have a million things to do before my month-long vacation starts after next Friday.
So I’m sitting here sipping my whiskey and Diet Pepsi, getting ready for dinner, and thinking.
What am I thinking?
I’m thinking “what the heck am I going to write about tonight?”
Then it hit me, of course.
I had just written this morning (ok, last night, but it posted this morning, and you’re welcome for the behind the scenes blogging glimpse) about the latest GMT newsletter, and how excited I was about the new P500 orders announced, as well as the status of my other P500 orders.
Why don’t I write about pre-orders?
Highlights From the June GMT Update
It’s June and I just realized today that I haven’t done a GMT highlights post in a while.
I’m always a bit torn because I’m not truly a wargamer (at least not much of one), so a lot of the “oh, that looks neat!” aspects of the newsletter are kind of lost on me.
Yes, it looks neat, but I can’t really say anything about it that’s beyond “oh, that looks neat!”
I do use “neat” a lot, so sue me…
Anyway, yesterday I received the June update and there’s some pretty cool stuff in there, and since I haven’t done a post yet this week, I figured “why the hell not?”
There are not only neat things in this newsletter (Editor: “Stop using that word!”), but the two new P500 games are really attractive to me and even the reprint almost had me going (and may eventually still get me there).
So let’s just cut all of this crap (and my word count…no, my precious word count!) and get started!
(and I have to beat Grant to this…not doing so is kind of what kept me from doing it last month…and it seems like I missed that goal by a few hours)
Read MoreFriday Night Shots – Never-Ending Arguments
Welcome to Friday night!
It’s the weekend, hopefully you’ve got something good planned.
Pull up a chair, and let’s talk about some stuff.
So, what is a wargame?
No, no no, don’t worry your pretty heart about that.
I’m not actually asking you that question.
I don’t want this post to become a huge argument between the Kirks and the McCoys.
(sorry for that reference to my international readers who probably won’t get it)
No, I just wanted to use that as an example of what I’m going to talk about.
Why do people constantly go to places like Boardgame Geek, or even Twitter, and poke the bear with these questions or comments that are never going to be fully agreed upon, yet everybody gets up in arms about?
Granted, “what is a wargame” isn’t usually posted out of the blue.
Instead, it’s used when somebody wants to denigrate somebody else’s opinion about a game.
“Root is my favourite wargame of all-time.”
“What are you, an idiot? Root’s not a wargame!”
“Yes it is!”
“No it isn’t.”
“Yes it is!”
(3rd person, 4th person, 5th person, 85th person gets involved and suddenly we have a 100-page thread that’s full of posts removed by the BGG moderator)
Read MoreSkies Above Britain – Storage Solution From Rails on Board
It’s that time of the week again!
No, not time to wash out all of your delicates.
It’s time for another wargame storage solution from Rails on Board!
This one is from them as somebody else actually put it together.
Skies Above Britain is the latest solo air combat game from Jerry White (this time co-designed with Gina Willis) from GMT Games.
Just like Storm Above the Reich, there are a lot of blocks and cardboard pieces and lots of other detritus in the game, making it really hard to bag and store.
Leave it to Rails on Boards/Cube4Me (and some of its users, like me! But not in this case) to come up with a great storage solution to keep things organized and easy to get out on the table.
Let’s take a look at it.
Read MoreCombat Commander After Action Report – Scenario #10 – Commando School
Just in case you were all faked out by my supplemental after action report last week, this is the official June game of Combat Commander as part of the ladder tournament run by the indomitable Patrick Pence, he of Patrick’s Tactics & Tutorials Youtube fame.
I have to put that “Youtube” bit in there just in case you think he’s famous like me as a blogger.
Or a lumberjack.
Anyway, it’s June and this month we go old school with a scenario from the original Combat Commander: Europe base game – Commando School.
My opponent this month was Asher, who was returning from a hiatus from the ladder (I actually forgot to ask how long he was away). He was lucky enough to face me!
Whether that was good or bad luck we shall see.
(Don’t forget that you can click on the pictures to blow them up…I mean, not literally but you can make them bigger)
Commando School has a German counterattack (me, grey) against some Russian commandos (Asher, brown) who had been part of a Russian amphibious operation on the Black Sea.
We each had a private objective and the public one was that exit points were doubled.
The Russians can set up 12 hexes away from the left side of the board. The Germans, setting up second, can set up 3 hexes from the right side.
The Russians are defending (meaning they get to use all of those great Defender cards) and the Germans are attacking.
Only one special rule of note. Due to the Russians being commandos, they aren’t wearing any underwear get to add +1 to their melee rolls.
Not only do the Germans set up second, but they go first, so let’s begin!
Read MorePaladins of the West Kingdom – Storage Solution From Folded Space
And now we’re three for three.
When Folded Space was offering a bundle deal for storage solutions for the Collector’s Edition boxes of all three West Kingdom games, I jumped at the chance.
Having reviewed the Architects of the West Kingdom and Viscounts of the West Kingdom inserts, it’s now time to do the one that I haven’t played since February 2020: Paladins of the West Kingdom!
(Note: all three of these are available separate from Folded Space, but the bundle deal is long gone)
As with the other Garphill Games Collector’s box inserts, the original one that came with it is great at storage, but terrible at actually getting the game to the table.
It’s not as bad as the other ones, but there are still too many deep wells to pull stuff out of, and you have to put the whole box on the table to get all of the pieces out.
One of the best things about the Folded Space inserts is that it’s all modular. You can take all of the trays out and put them on the table for easy usage.
How does the insert work and look?
Let’s take a…gander.
Read MoreReview – Wayfarers of the South Tigris
There are games that are just complex for the sake of being complex.
The rules are really intricate, each phase has like 10 things to do, and everybody spends 10 minutes trying to figure out what to do on their turn.
Then there are games that are complex not because each turn is full of stuff, but because while you can only do one of three things, the options that you have (and which one is best to do) can really make your brain work.
Wayfarers of the South Tigris, designed by Shem Phillips and S J MacDonald, with art by Mihajlo Dimitrievski, is one of those latter games.
The game was published by Garphill Games and Renegade Game Studios in 2022.
This is the first in the South Tigris trilogy of games, all of which will involve dice in some way.
(The second, Scholars of the South Tigris), has already been Kickstarted and hopefully I’ll be receiving it by the end of the year!)
Of course, being a Garphill game, it does also have an abundance of cards.
How does this one fare, and hold up to the West Kingdom trilogy?
Let’s take a look.
Read More
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