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A Gaming Life
STORM ABOVE THE REICH – AFTER ACTION REPORT – MISSION #22
Allied Bombers over Germany have been in short supply recently (i.e. I haven’t been able to play Storm Above the Reich lately and thus the campaign has been stalled), but they suddenly appeared one day and the brave pilots of Staffel Roy scrambled to be up to the challenge! (i.e. I finally was able to get it to the table again a couple of weeks ago).
Yes, this is another episode in the continuing saga of Staffel Roy and its pilots for this awesome solitaire wargame.
We are 5 missions into the Late 1943 campaign with 5 to go and doing really well on victory points!
Sadly, I could still lose this campaign very quickly, even with enough victory points!
Each campaign requires a player to have a certain number of pilots available. They don’t have to all go on a mission, but they have to be available (meaning not wounded). Of course, as you’ve seen, once a pilot is replaced, if that same lettered pilot is killed, you can’t replace them again. I have a few missing letters because of that.
For Late 1943, that limit is 10 pilots.
How many available, unwounded pilots do I currently have?
Eleven.
That’s assuming nobody comes back from the hospital at the beginning of this mission.
Did any come back?
Of course not!
I guess that’s a spoiler for after the break.
Can I manage to average 4 points each over the next 5 missions?
I think that’s more of a possibility!
Let’s take a look to see what happened.
Read MoreNew to Me – October 2022
October started out really kind of warm and ended really cold and rainy.
Welcome to the Pacific Northwest!
But it was a good month for gaming.
I already told you about the month in general, though, so let’s stick to the stuff that you came to this post for: the new to me games!
You’ve probably played these already, but let me have my time in the spotlight, will ya?
Thank you.
Anyway, only five new to me games were played in October, and three of them were at SHUX during the first weekend of the month.
Thankfully, our Sunday game days introduced me to two more, and I even got one of those played twice!
That is very unusual.
There are some older games in this list, including Finca which originally came out a long time ago but I played the 2018 reprint, so my fellow New to Me cult members didn’t actually raise too much of a fuss.
They didn’t know about the reprint status, otherwise I think I would have had an insurrection on my hands.
But that’s neither here nor there (where the hell did that phrase come from, anyway? It’s gotta be somewhere!).
So without further ado (all of my ado was used to build a kelp farm anyway), let’s begin!
Read MoreOctober Gaming
October was a pretty good month for gaming for me, better than September anyway.
The five “new to me” games (marked with an asterisk) will be talked about in my monthly post for October, but I just wanted to show you all what I’ve been up to this month.
Here are the top 16 out of the 17 played, in picture form!
A number of games came from the last two days of SHUX 2022, but even without that, I had a fair number of plays both at work and on Sunday game days.
The only reason there aren’t more is because a number of the games I played were longer (Ark Nova and Underwater Cities, anyone?) so nothing else was played that day.
I’m very happy I got Prodigals Club to the table again, though. It’s one of my favourite games and I have now played it twice in two months. That was after not playing it for almost 4 years.
There were, of course, the obligatory Jump Drive and Smash Up games as well. Those will probably be here every month (though maybe not Smash Up if we play something else at work).
We also finished the Night of the Zealot campaign (the Core Box campaign) for Arkham Horror: the Card Game. We’re now ready to start the Dunwich Legacy campaign!
Once I get new decks built.
All in all, it was a great month and November’s looking good too with this weekend’s Bottoscon convention. I know one new game I will be playing there!
But this is about October. You’ll find out about November next month.
What did you play this month?
Let me know in the comments.
Combat Commander – After Action Report – Scenario M4 – Templeton’s Crossing
Two months in a row my Combat Commander ladder post about this month’s scenario is going to go out on the last day of the month.
Though this time it’s partially because we didn’t play it until the 25th.
This is another tale from the Combat Commander ladder run by the irreplaceable Patrick Pence of Youtube’s Patrick’s Tactics & Tutorials (if you haven’t checked the channel out, you should).
This is my monthly Combat Commander fix and it’s one I greatly enjoy, even though I’m on a terrible losing streak!
October’s game was yet another rematch, this time from last October (so we played another game from the Combat Commander: Pacific New Guinea battle pack). My opponent was Vlad M and this month’s scenario was a wild one, Templeton’s Crossing. This has a meeting between the Australian forces (me – Tan) attacking while the Japanese (Vlad – White) were retreating to concentrate on Guadalcanal.
This is a tale of courage and perseverance, fortitude and grit…and outright stupidity, but hell, you can’t have everything!
(Don’t forget that you can click on an image to blow it up)
Here’s our setup. The circled Sighting markers became very important. By scenario special rule, the Japanese cannot bring any more units into the game using Infiltration orders.
However, they can “teleport” any stack of Japanese units on the board onto one of the Sighting markers (removing the Sighting marker so it’s no longer available). Since that order does not activate them, they can then do other bad things.
You will see what I mean…
Also, all of that light green stuff littering the map?
That’s actually all Jungle (just like the dark green stuff), which blocks line of sight for units on the same level and creates blind hexes behind for those units that are up higher.
Sight lines are terrible in this scenario!
Thankfully the Australians have a Scout, so the mortars don’t have to be in line of sight.
How’d we do?
Let’s take a look.
Read MoreWingspan: Oceania Expansion Coming to Digital
(Edit: 11/7/23) – A release date has been announced! December 12 at 10:00 am PST!
It’s nice when you look at your email inbox and find some welcome news instead of the usual spam and people bothering you about things you don’t care about.
But sometimes you get something cool.
Like the email from Monster Couch that says the Oceania expansion is coming soon to their digital implementation of Wingspan!
Yes, that’s right. Another expansion, and this time it’s one I haven’t played before.
The Oceania expansion adds a host of new birds and gameplay mechanics to the game.
There’s the wild resource, Nectar and new player boards that will accommodate it. Nectar can be used as a wild resource, but it also counts as points when you consume it.
There are also birds with yellow game end powers (like the Little Pied Cormorant above). That can be a pretty powerful one!
There’s a bunch of other stuff, but this is just a taste.
When’s it coming out?
We don’t know!
But it will be cool to finally play it when it does, as I haven’t had the chance to play it on the table yet.
Here’s the Youtube teaser for it if you’re interested.
It’s going to be released simultaneously on all platforms (Steam, iOS, Android, Xbox, Nintendo Switch). You can put it on your Steam wishlist here.
What do you think of this announcement?
Let me know in the comments.
Review – Cape May
What’s the only major tourist destination in New Jersey?
Yes, Cape May!
It’s a beautiful oceanside town, at least from what I saw on the Blacklist episode it featured in.
(Yes, I’m aware of Atlantic City. This is kind of an inside joke, but I’ll bet you Cape May is the quietest and most leisurely tourist destination in New Jersey for those who just want to relax).
Anyway, what better subject for a game than building up this peaceful place for tourists to stay?
Cape May is a game designed by Eric Mosso with art by Michael Menzel. It was published in 2021 by Thunderworks Games.
It was a game that was sort of intriguing to me when it first was announced in 2020 but I never picked it up. I finally did so on a whim when trying to get free shipping on an order last year.
What a fortuitous occurrence!
That’s because this game has been played a fair amount and hit a pleasant nerve for some of us in my game group.
How does it work?
Let’s take a look.
Read MoreNew Colt Express Expansion Coming in 2023
In Friday’s post about new to me games for September, I mentioned that I really enjoyed Colt Express even as I said the newer Colt Super Express wasn’t really that great.
Lo and behold, the universe is listening to me because I just saw an announcement that a new Colt Express expansion is coming from Ludonaute Games! (or course, this was announced on October 14 and has actually been talked about without a date for the last 6 months, but I missed it, so it’s still news to me…)
Colt Express is the train-robbing programming game where players are individual bandits with special abilities trying to get the most loot from the train that they are all on. Playing cards into a pile in turn order that will then be executed in the same order, requiring you to think ahead.
Colt Express: Couriers & Armored Train is coming to Europe in November and to North America sometime in 2023.
What does this expansion add to this already chaotic game?
Read MoreNew to Me – September 2022
September was a weird month as far as boardgaming went.
Our Sundays were sparsely-attended and we ended up playing games that we were already familiar with.
With one of my usual gaming co-workers away for most of the month, my other co-worker agreed to play Combat Commander: Pacific with me! That was great.
Except that due to schedules, the game actually was set up on my table at work for over two weeks, which meant I didn’t do any solo gaming when he wasn’t available.
So as of September 30, I hadn’t played any new to me games!
I know, right?
But I knew that there would be enough to post about for the month.
Because beginning on September 30 and going over the weekend, SHUX was coming…
And there would be a lot of new to me games there.
So there was!
So many that I thought this post would be tougher to write, but thankfully this post only covers Friday.
The Saturday/Sunday games will actually be in next month’s post.
I already spoke briefly about all of these games in my SHUX post, but I’ll give a little more detail below (or at least some more pictures).
There were only two games that were 2022 releases, so the Cult of the New to Me wasn’t too pissed off with me. Though the oldest was 2019, so they gave me a bit of a stink eye.
But overall they were happy.
So without further ado (all of my ado was stolen by Cleopatra during our tryst anyway, and what’s up with that?), let’s begin!
Read MoreRenegade Game Studios Expands Licensing Agreement with Hasbro – Squad Leader Coming?
Last week, Renegade Game Studios sent out a press release about its licensing agreement with Hasbro, stating the following:
“Renegade Game Studios is excited to announce that they are in negotiations to expand their licensing relationship with Hasbro, a global branded entertainment company, to include best-selling games Axis & Allies, Diplomacy, Squad Leader, and Robo Rally. “
First, I assume that they wouldn’t be releasing this information if there was a chance that the negotiations would fall through, so I’m going with “this is happening.”
Secondly, I was really excited to see the name Squad Leader in the announcement!
What does this mean for Advanced Squad Leader from Multi-Man Publishing and will this be a straight reprint of the original game (prior to Advanced Squad Leader being created)?
I have no idea.
Renegade hasn’t responded to my request for more information on that.
What’s even more confusing is the graphics that came with the press release:
Where is Squad Leader?
I don’t know.
There’s a link to sign up for more information on Axis & Allies, and Diplomacy/Robo Rally on this page, but again, no Squad Leader.
In fact, that paragraph is the only mention of Squad Leader that I could find. The rest of the press release and the hype seems to be for the other three titles.
I’m assuming more information will be coming at some point, and of course any reprints that are part of this agreement won’t be coming until sometime in 2023 anyway, but I’m dying of curiosity!
Squad Leader was one of my favourite games when I was in college. I graduated to ASL but never actually played it before moving out west and having to sell what I had already bought.
Now it’s too expensive (tons of money for just the rulebook not to mention the modules to play the game, unless you do the Starter Kits), but a reprint of the original Squad Leader (even if it has upgraded graphics and stuff) might be in my wheelhouse.
I am intrigued, but I’m also wary.
More information on this will surely be coming, and if Renegade responds to my request with any concrete information, I will definitely update this post.
But for now, all we are left with is a kind of wariness.
Since they don’t talk about Squad Leader except in that paragraph, I can’t imagine that it will be high on their priority list.
But a man can dream.
What do you think about this development?
Let me know in the comments.
SHUX 2022 Retrospective
Last weekend, for the first time in almost three years, I actually went to a game convention.
COVID really did put a damper on things.
SHUX is the Shut Up & Sit Down gaming convention held at the Convention Centre in my home town of Vancouver, British Columbia in October (or, this year, September 30 – October 2).
After almost three years, it was delightful to be in a huge hall and play a bunch of games with people again.
I’d forgotten how much I missed that!
The event itself was well-run as usual. With COVID still looming, proof of double vaccination was mandatory as were masks.
I have to give the volunteers credit: they were on top of this policy all of the time, at least as much as I could see. I saw a volunteer quietly and gently remind one of the attendees that eating wasn’t allowed other in the designated area and that they had to put their mask back on.
Of course, you could briefly take it off to have a sip of water. You can’t go all day without any kind of water or other beverage.
But no food in the gaming area, and masks on at all other times.
I appreciated that.
The games library was also very large so you didn’t have to bring your own games (though a bunch of them I played were brought by my friends).
I didn’t get to meet as many people as I would have liked, though I did meet Dan of Boardgame Feast fame.
An incredibly nice guy, we chatted a couple of times though never did get a game in.
Ultimately, this was a convention that just brought me back to the entire gaming world, spending a weekend playing a ton of games and seeing a few friends who I don’t see otherwise (hi Evan, Robin and Shawn!) and gaming with them.
I didn’t go to any of the scheduled shows, though I did check out the demo hall and even tried out a hockey game called Trick Shot.
It was a fun little game. I only played a few turns of it before I had to meet my friend for lunch, but I enjoyed it.
But really, you’re here to hear about the games, aren’t you?
So let’s get into those.
Read More
Dude! Take Your Turn! 