Dude! Take Your Turn!
A Gaming Life
Clank Coming to Digital in 2024 from Dire Wolf Digital
Here’s some exciting news for your Friday!!!
Dire Wolf Digital’s Clank is going to be coming to Steam and mobile devices in 2024!
Backers of their current Clank! Legacy 2: Acquisitions Incorporated – Darkest Magic will be getting free access to the closed beta that will be coming later this year.
Clank! is, of course, that dungeon-running deck-building game that one of my favourites (Clank! in! Space!) is based on.
You are facing off against the dragon trying to steal the most valuable treasure from his horde and get out alive.
This is exciting news, but it is a long way off…unless you’re backing their kickstarter.
Either way, I will be watching for developments on this because I would definitely love to play this digitally with async multiplayer.
Dire Wolf has a great track record with these adaptations, with Everdell, Raiders of the North Sea, Sagrada, and of course Root (and many others).
This one will hopefully be just as good!
Stay tuned for more.
Combat Commander After Action Report – Scenario #105 – La Fiere Counterattack
Has it only been a month since my last Combat Commander ladder AAR?
Actually, it’s been less than a month!
Barely.
I consider that a win.
Ladies and gentlemen, it’s time for another adventure from the Combat Commander ladder, that monthly tournament of one of my favourite games of all time.
Run by the acclaimed Patrick Pence, he of Patrick’s Tactics & Tutorials fame, the ladder allows me to face off against opponents from all over the world, trudging through the countryside from Guadalcanal all the way to the shores of France (going the long way around, of course), trying to beat your opponent into submission with superior maneuver and firepower.
And have tons of fun and laughs doing it.
This month’s scenario was taken from the pages of C3i Magazine #20, a little scenario between the Americans and Germans on D-Day behind the Normandy beaches.
My opponent this month was Ted W, somebody who I have had great experience watching Patrick play in the Normandy Campaign on Patrick’s channel.
After watching those videos, I knew I had my work cut out for me.
You can click on each picture to blow it up.
In the scenario, the Germans (Me – grey) have a small force attacking across a small bridge against a very small American (Ted – green) force (this scenario is, as they say, small…).
A couple of special rules.
First, the stream is actually an impassable water barrier, and those Soviet control markers on the edge are also impassable.
Essentially, the only way across the water is that one bridge.
The Americans set up first, and can set up 8 hexes deep from the left side of the map. However, they can’t set up on the German side of the river.
The Germans can set up 4 hexes deep.
Smoke is going to be very important in this scenario, so it’s a good thing the Germans have a mortar that can fire it!
If they didn’t have a crew trained by me, anyway…
Also, all fences (the thin brown hex sides) are considered hedges, and all hedges are considered bocage (so they have +2 movement/cover instead of the normal +1).
Thankfully the Americans are in Recon posture and not Defensive, so they can’t use any of those annoying defense cards to stop my advance.
How’d it go?
Lots of twists and turns.
Let’s take a look.
Read More4 New Expansions from Alderac Entertainment Group Coming to Kickstarter June 6
(Edit: 6/6/23: It’s live!)
It’s rare when I see a “by a bunch of stuff in one bundle” offer come up where I want most of it, so it makes it worth actually taking a look at.
That’s changed with the latest announcement from Alderac Entertainment Group (AEG).
Coming to Kickstarter on June 6, the following expansions will be available to back.
Space Base: Genesis I already talked about when it was first announced. Designed by John D. Clair, this was already a must-buy since Space Base is one of my favourite games.
There’s also the new expansion for David Thompson and Trevor Benjamin’s War Chest, the great 2-player bag-building game that I’ve played a few times and need to get a review done for! Not to mention playing the first two expansions.
This expansion is called Nightfall and will highlight the seedier side of warfare.
Then there’s the Cubitos expansion, Fowl Play. Cubitos is a push your luck dice rolling racing game also designed by John D. Clair.
It’s a lot of fun and this expansion looks to add more dice colours and new ability cards for the base game’s colours. A new double-sided race track and components to get up to 6 players is also in it!
The final expansion is for Tiny Towns, a game I haven’t played yet. It’s designed by Peter McPherson and is a game where you are building a city using the many resources gathered, but you don’t always get the choice of what resources are available.
The expansion, Architects, adds new buildings, new monuments, and the possibility of having an additional, tinier town!
No pictures have been posted yet for these expansions, but I’m definitely going to be looking hard at this one.
Judging from the picture (so I could be wrong), it looks like all four combined will cost $90. Not bad for four expansions.
Check out the Kickstarter link so you will be notified when it goes live on June 6.
Are you excited about this? Unnerved? Apathetic?
Let me know in the comments.
American Tank Ace: 1944-1945 – Storage Solution With Rails on Boards
The previous wargame sets of the wonderful storage trays from Rails on Boards/Cube4Me have been fairly easy for even my non-spatial brain to put together.
Find a tray (or maybe two), divide the pieces, maybe a couple of card trays, and Bob’s your uncle (why is that never something like “Steve’s your uncle?”)
Today, though, we had a bit of a challenge, especially because I’m running out of the trays that Rails on Boards sent to me for sample to build some sets.
American Tank Ace: 1944-1945 is a solo World War II wargame from Compass Games, designed by Gregory M. Smith, where players are commanding an American tank in Europe after D-Day, trying to survive and thrive all the way to the fall of Germany.
It’s another game where you have a ton of counters but you only need a few different ones in each scenario.
This calls for a storage solution!
But this one was tricky, because the box is so damned thin and it’s got a bunch of stuff in it already!
There are a lot of counters in this game, but not so many that two of the big plastic trays would be useable (though that might actually work in a pinch to separate all of the German units better than I did here).
What I ended up doing was using two of the 12-compartment, 8mm deep trays with only one lid. That way they would mesh together very nicely.
On the bottom, I put all of the campaign counters, your crew skills, unit designation, your tank possibilities, as well as the souvenirs you can find on the battlefield. There’s also smoke and scenario setup counters in one of the compartments.
These can’t be filled quite as much since it needs the top tray to mesh with it.
In the top tray with the lid is all the German counters and all of your ammunition counters.
However, I was a couple of compartments short…and then there’s still the dice!
What I ended up doing was using a 1-compartment Mini Euro Card tray to hold the status markers and the dice.
This tray is easy to have next to you and use when your tank is immobilized or when you dig in, or maybe turn your turret.
The trays fit into the box so easily that it looks like it was almost made for it.
And there is literally no lid lift at all!
I would like to try this with two 8mm 20-compartment trays, which would let me sort the Germans out even more as well as having a compartment for the status markers and such.
However, there may be no room for the dice. They might fit snugly between the edge of the trays and the box, though. I’m not sure.
Sadly, since I only have one of those trays left, I couldn’t try it.
One of those trays is definitely not enough.
The set I put together will certainly do in a pinch, though!
Thanks to Rails on Boards for providing me with the trays to enable me to put these together.
I’m looking forward to trying out this game, now that I’m not lost in a sea of unsorted (or multiply-bagged) counters.
Have you tried this one?
Let me know in the comments.
Friday Night Shots – What Game Mechanism Do You Hate?
Hey there.
It’s Friday night, the Canadian Club is flowing just a little bit, and it’s time for a little light-hearted discussion about the news of the day.
No, not the news that apparently there could be water under the ice on some of the moons of Uranus (Ok, say it if you need to, and then let’s move on…).
And certainly nothing political.
No, it’s the weekly boardgaming question that I ask!
What’s this week’s question?
And what’s your drink of choice that I can serve you (and it’s ok if it’s non-alcoholic, Brian)?
Tonight’s question is: What is your most-hated game mechanic?
And yes, it’s a bit of hyperbole.
Maybe you don’t “hate” the mechanic. But it’s a mechanic that you avoid like the plague when it comes time to decide what game you want to play tonight.
And you know I have some thoughts…
So let’s get to them!
Read MoreGames and My Mental Health
On my lunch break yesterday, I happened upon the latest Table Talk episode by Rodney Smith and the rest of the Watch it Played gang.
This was posted 11 days ago.
The video was asking the question “Are Board Games Good For Your Mental Health?”
What an important question, and one that we don’t always think about much.
I thought about making this part of my Friday Night Shots series tonight, but didn’t really want to associate alcohol with this important topic.
(Don’t worry, fans will be getting a Shot about a different topic).
Anyway, part of the whole Table Talk thing is that Rodney and friends talk about a topic, and then invite people to leave comments about what they think. Those are then addressed in a future video.
Being a blogger, and not wanting to leave a 1000-word comment, I thought I would address it here instead.
I hope that’s ok, Rodney.
Read MoreAces of Valor After Action Report – British Short Campaign – Mission 1
Welcome to the first in what will hopefully be a series of after action reports for the extremely immersive Aces of Valor solitaire wargame of World War I aerial combat.
In my review of the game, I gave a pretty good description of how things play, so I won’t go into great rules detail, unless it’s something that I didn’t address there.
For this first campaign, I chose a short (8 mission) campaign and decided to use a British squadron. That way I wouldn’t have to roll to see what enemy I was facing (which you have to do if you are the Germans) and I just thought it would be cool.
Tally Ho!
Too much?
Anyway, let’s see how this first mission went.
Read MoreThunder Alley – Storage Solution With Rails on Boards
It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these posts, mainly because I ran out some of the samples, so much so that I needed a tray infusion.
No, not that kind of infusion.
This is another Cube4Me storage tray set that I designed with the trays provided by them.
So thank you for that!
Thunder Alley is a stock car racing game (essentially NASCAR without the license) from GMT Games.
(Editor: “There are some men in black suits knocking on the door. What should I tell them?”)
The game has a few track boards (with hopefully more coming!) and each player is a racing team with multiple cars.
It’s actually really cool and I think it will make a good Sunday game at some point in the near future.
Especially now that I have it stored very nicely thanks to Cube4Me.
Read MoreExpansion Review – Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition – Discovery & Foundations
When Stronghold Games announced that one of my favourite games, Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition was getting not one, but three expansions, I was pretty excited.
And judging from the hits on that post I just linked, you were too!
My friend who owns that game jumped on the Kickstarter for the trio of expansions (I think they are coming to retail individually in a staggered manner, but I’m not sure) and they finally arrived!
The Crisis expansion is a cooperative one and not one that we will probably play. As I said in my April Gaming post, we don’t really do many cooperative games at our game day.
But Discovery and Foundations were definitely on the docket!
Both expansions (as well as the original game) were designed by Sydney Engelstein, Jacob Fryxelius, and Nick Little with artwork by Nio Mendoza and were obviously published in 2023 since they just arrived.
This review is going to be about both expansions since both will forever be used in our games now.
Were they worth the wait?
Let’s take a look.
Read MoreTerraforming Mars – Prelude 2 Expansion Coming to Kickstarter Soon
(Edit: 9/4/23) – Rather than edit this post with a bunch of stuff, check out the announcement that the Kickstarter opens on September 5…and there is a lot of stuff!
(Edit 8/30/23) – While the campaign is not live, it’s up on Kickstarter so you can be notified when it does!
And it really sounds like there will be some great possibilities available!
(Edit 6/8/23) – I’m late with this, but apparently the Kickstarter will launch in September, but no specific date yet.
See here for some card previews, though!)
(Edit: 5/15/23) – More news about this from designer Jacob Fryxelius on Boardgame Geek.
He gave a breakdown of what’s going to be in this 54-card expansion, as follows:
“If you play with all expansions (Venus, Colonies, and Turmoil): Use all the new cards (5 corporations, 25 preludes, and 24 project cards)!
If you use only Venus: 5 corporations, 19 preludes, and 7 project cards.
If you use only Colonies: 5 corporations, 19 preludes, and 3 project cards.
If you use only Turmoil: 5 corporations, 19 preludes, and 8 project cards.
If you don’t use any of those expansions: 5 corporations, 16 preludes, and 0 project cards.
There are 6 project cards that require 2 of the expansions (for example Venus + Colonies).“
Sounds pretty good so far! He also mentioned that it will come to Kickstarter sometime in the next two months most likely.
Looking forward to seeing what’s all in there.
Now back to the original post.
Apparently, Terraforming Mars is getting one last expansion, something that will still fit in the Big Box (which I know you all love).
Called Prelude 2 (is that going to be its final name?), this expansion will include new project cards, 5 new corporations, ongoing Prelude effects, and Prelude cards that will focus on interacting with the other expansions.
That last one is what some people who own everything have been waiting for.
In addition, though, Fryx Games stated that there will be “a couple of other brand new TM-related items, among them a new promo pack, but also some secret new additions.”
Somebody on Facebook suggested that new Colony tiles would be great.
But who knows?
Thanks to BGG user Mak Vujanović for breaking this news on Boardgame Geek.
This is quite exciting as a fan of the game (though it has fallen a bit just because of the difficulty of getting it to the table).
What about you? Are you excited?
Or kind of in “wait and see” mode?
I understand if you don’t use all of the expansions, some of these Prelude cards may not be of interest.
But we’ll have to see how they take care of that.
More news when it hits Kickstarter (which there’s no indication of a date right now).
Dude! Take Your Turn! 