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A Gaming Life
Combat Commander – After Action Report – Scenario 75 – Sturmgruppe Beton
It’s February and I actually did an early game in our Combat Commander ladder, led by the superlative Patrick Pence, the man behind the Patrick’s Tactics & Tutorials Youtube channel.
The ladder has been a fun way to play Combat Commander live once a month, rather than just the Play-By-Email (or in this case, Discord) games with my good friend Michal.
I lost yet again last month, which means I’ve lost two in a row and it’s time to get back to my winning ways!
Was I able to?
You’ll just have to keep reading to find out! (It’s not like I’m going to spoil it for you now, though you being here seeing this counts as a view, so maybe it doesn’t matter?).
Anyway, what was I saying?
Oh yeah, February’s ladder game!
February’s scenario is from the Fall of the West battle pack for Combat Commander. These scenarios take place during the German invasion of Belgium, the Netherlands, and France.
It has a contingent of German paratroops who had landed and taken the bridges at Vroenhoven and Veldwelezt in Belgium. The Belgian force is trying to evict the German paratroops from their positions while the Germans are awaiting reinforcements.
Here’s the setup for it. I was the Germans and my opponent, John D, was the Belgian force (using the French card deck which really made a difference).
The Germans are in the bottom southeast corner defending the road to the bridge while the Belgians are in the north trying to advance.
By scenario special rule, the Belgians only get exit victory points if they exit through hexes N10 or O10, which signifies getting to the bridge. That means the Germans don’t have to defend the entire board edge, which is good because they don’t have a lot of units at the start!
The Belgians do get double victory points for eliminating German units, but that may not happen too often because the Germans are entrenched.
How did that go?
Let’s take a look.
(As usual, you can click on a picture to blow it up)
Read MoreTop 25 Games Played of All Time – 2022 Edition (#10-6)
We’re almost to the end of my Top 25 games played of all time, 2022 edition, and there may have been a few surprises.
I know there have been some new games, and some games have fallen drastically from their 2019 ranking.
I feel bad about that somewhat, but one thing I think I did in 2019 is over-estimate some of the newer games that I had played at the time.
Or maybe I just hadn’t played that many awesome games?
Still, I’m glad to see that a bunch of them have stayed in the Top 25, even if they have fallen somewhat. That means that they are still great games that I would love to keep playing.
I’m kind of mellow about all of that.
One game that really took a plunge is London, by Martin Wallace.
I really did enjoy my two plays of this game and I want to play it again.
But I haven’t played it since 2017 and maybe part of the problem is lack of exposure.
Or maybe there are just a bunch of games ahead of it (I really wish I had kept my 2019 total list to see).
It fell from #15 to #113 and I’m not quite sure why.
I have to put my usual disclaimer in here (in case this is the first post you’re seeing). I’ve only played around 420 games, so there are a bunch of top-ranked games that I haven’t played.
So you Everdell fans, maybe I’ll be able to join you when the app comes out!
Until then, don’t get pissy at me that your game isn’t ranked.
On that note, let’s begin!
Read MoreStorm Above the Reich – After Action Report – Mission #13
After doing my AAR for my Combat Commander ladder game last week, I decided to take the week off from my Storm Above the Reich campaign, just so you don’t think I post nothing but After Action Reports.
Six missions into the second season of the Staffel Roy campaign and things are going much better now.
I’m not worried that I’m going to fail the season. You have to reach 30 victory points to “not fail” (40 victory points to win) and it was looking bad after the first couple of missions.
But after Mission #12, we were at 17 VP with four missions left. That’s barely 4 VP a mission!
We can do that easily, right?
Right?
Ahem.
Anyway, it’s time for lucky Mission 13 and let’s see if we can pull this out!
Read MoreTop 25 Games Played of All Time – 2022 Edition (15-11)
It’s another week so it’s time for another edition of the Top 25 Games Played (by me) of All Time – 2022 edition!
We’ve gone through ten of them so far and so far they have been very cool games!
I don’t really care if you don’t agree with me.
Ok, I do…please come back.
Anyway, there have been some major drops from the 2019 list as well as new additions to it.
For some reason, Gugong dropped off from #21 to #98. Part of that is because I haven’t played it since but I think also it’s a matter of time and me thinking I may have overestimated it back then. I had just played it recently and that experience was still in my head.
But now, when I think about playing it, I’m kind of…
I’ll do it and I’ll probably enjoy it, but it’s not something I’ve been itching to play for a while.
To be on the Top 25, it should be a game I’m always willing and wanting to play.
I guess maybe I should have put a spoiler alert on that?
Oh well.
Usual disclaimer: I’ve played a little over 400 games, so there will be some noteworthy absences.
You Food Chain Magnet fans can just go right back to your restaurants and jam a french fry into a place where it’s not supposed to be.
So on that happy note, let’s begin!
Read MoreCombat Commander – After Action Report – Scenario 65 – Road Trip
It’s time for another After Action Report for Combat Commander ladder run by the incomparable Patrick Pence (he of Patrick’s Tactics & Tutorials Youtube channel)!
December’s loss was disheartening but I was hoping to come back with a win in January.
I needed to get back near the top!
Did that happen?
You’ll have to keep reading to find out.
January’s scenario was taken from the Combat Commander: Resistance expansion and has a cadre of French Partisans facing off against a contingent of German soldiers who are trying to get to Normandy to fight of the Allied invasion.
This month’s opponent was Stan M and he was playing the Germans. I had the task of playing the Partisans and learning all of their new rules!
(As usual, you can click on a picture to see it larger)
This was the setup, but I should mention a few things first.
The Partisans are different than all of the other Combat Commander factions for a number of reasons.
First, they only have 36 cards in their deck instead of 72 (but they don’t have any Time triggers).
Secondly, their leaders don’t have Leadership value for their units but just for weapons (since Leadership is for Squads and Teams and Partisans don’t have those) and they don’t have a Command radius.
Instead, when a leader is activated, they can activate any Partisan unit in line of sight of that leader.
That can be a lot! Or maybe not so much if they are isolated.
Thirdly, Partisans aren’t assigned weapons by the scenario. Instead, they are assigned a certain number of random weapons that are drawn at the beginning of the game. You don’t know what you’re getting!
Finally, when a broken Partisan unit (except a leader) breaks again, you draw a “Force Draw” card. It’s very possible that the unit will just be reduced rather than eliminated.
(There are a couple more oddities, like circled movement ratings making it so each hex only costs 1 movement point regardless of terrain).
With that in mind, can my Partisans hold the line and eliminate a bunch of Germans?
Let’s see, shall we?
Read MoreUndaunted: Stalingrad Coming From Osprey Games
Two posts today (One coming later)! I couldn’t wait until tomorrow to post this one.
I saw on Twitter today that another entry in the Undaunted deck-building wargame series designed by David Thompson and Trevor Benjamin is going to be coming this Fall.
Undaunted: Stalingrad will take the game to the carnage of this Soviet city as the German army and the Soviet hordes fight it out in the rubble.
I have yet to play the series though I do have Undaunted: North Africa (stupid COVID!).
According to the blog post on the Osprey site, it’s going to be pretty massive too, at least in content if not in length (still 45-60 minutes!)
“Game designers David Thompson & Trevor Benjamin said, ‘We’re very excited about the release of Undaunted: Stalingrad. We’re digging deep into the storied Battle of Stalingrad, a key battle not only for the Eastern Front but the entire Second World War, and we’re doing it with a massive box full of content unlike anything Undaunted fans have seen before. We’re introducing new units, actions, and ways to interact with the environment. What we’re most excited about though, is that we’ve created an integrated campaign, where the results of each scenario impact the rest of the campaign’s rich narrative and will set the stage for scenarios to come.'”
It sounds like you will be able to change how the setting looks each scenario of the campaign depending on what you do in the current scenario. Maybe a building will be demolished and stay demolished next scenario?
Did I say massive?
I meant massive.
The game’s going to come with 375 cards and 129 tiles (I think North Africa comes with, like, 25-30 tiles, but I don’t have the game with me).
The Integrated Campaign sounds really fun and it’s cool that they are still keeping each scenario to around an hour. Perfect for a lunchtime campaign!
(Sorry, Vicki).
Keep an eye here and on the Osprey web site for more information as this game moves along.
Are you as excited as I am?
Top 25 Games Played of All Time – 2022 Edition (20-16)
It’s that time again!
Yes, it’s another installment of my Top 25 Games Played of All Time – 2022 edition, all because I’ve now played over 400 games. The last edition was 3 years ago, so there are a bunch of new games in here as well as some movement from those that were on it before.
Some majorly dropped off (like Gizmos, which fell from #9 to #56 for some reason that I can’t really determine).
Other new games jumped very high up onto the list, like some Olympic athlete.
(I swear I’m not getting paid to post John Belushi gifs…)
Anyway, usual disclaimer. I have only played 420 games or so and it’s very possible your favourite classic game won’t be on here because I haven’t played it yet.
So don’t get pissed off that Pandemic Legacy: Season 1 isn’t on here.
I’ll get to it, ok?
Sheesh.
With that out of the way, did you want to see the next installment?
What, you don’t?
Then why are you here?
Let’s begin.
Read MoreStorm Above the Reich – After Action Report – Mission #12
We’re now 5 missions into the second season of the Staffel Roy campaign of Storm Above the Reich and things are looking up!
Last week, the Staffel gained 6 Victory Points, bringing us to the point where we might actually be able to salvage this season.
We’re currently at 13 VP with 5 missions left, and we’re required to gain 30 VP to “not lose.”
Could we maybe even manage to get to 40 VP and win?
Heaven knows!
Before I continue, I thought you might be interested in seeing how much table space is used for this game, or at least my playthroughs.
As you can see, the table is not the biggest and it’s a bit tight, but it’s easily manageable as long as all of the extra stuff is off to the side somewhere (all the extra unused fighters and auxiliaries, the unused markers, that sort of thing).
Anyway, it’s time for Mission #12.
And for the first time in a while, I’m actually not afraid of what’s going to happen.
I have faith in my boys!
I post this in the briefing room so it’s the last thing they see before they hit their fighters.
They haven’t figured out that this guy is an Englishman from the future.
Sssshhh!!!!!
And as the pilots man their planes, let’s set up the situation.
Read MoreTop 25 Games Played of All Time – 2022 Edition (25-21)
With the close of the year 2021, I have actually played 422 games since I really started playing boardgames in 2012.
Since my “Top 25 Games Played of All Time” series in 2019 was predicated on my having played almost 300 games, I thought that 2022 would be a good time to update that list.
I’ve played over 100 new to me games since January 2019!
Thus, here is the first entry in the 2022 version of the Top 25 Games Played of All Time (played by me, of course, not just anybody).
How did I compile this list?
Using the wonderful Ranking Engine from Pubmeeple that takes all of our games on Boardgame Geek and let’s you compare them Tinder style (except instead of swiping left/right when a game comes up, it instead asks you to choose one game over the other when a pair of them come up).
You can compare games you’ve ranked, games in your collection, games you’ve played, whatever!
It’s invaluable (and incredibly long when you have a bunch of games, as I had to make around 2200 choices overall).
Some of the results even surprised me.
Just a note before you get outraged, though.
Even having played 422 games, there are a ton of games I haven’t played. Just look at the Top 400 Games on BGG series where there were so many I hadn’t even touched before!
Hell, I’ve barely played half of the Top 100.
So obviously those won’t appear on this list at all.
You Gloomhaven fans are just going to have to calm yourselves.
No you’re not. Go away.
The other thing to be aware of is that some of these games, I’ve only played once. So their rating could change a lot by the next time I do this.
These are just the games that appeal to me.
It’s a calm, gentle list.
Just in case you’re curious, my #422 game is Lucky Loop.
Wow, what a terrible game. I’m not very calm about that one.
With that being said, I hope you enjoy this and let me know where you would rank some of these games in your own personal rankings.
Read MoreNew to Me – December 2021
It’s the end of the year 2021 (or it was when I played these games, anyway).
Having been able to go to game days again since August 2021, it was nice to have a bunch of new to me games to play each month!
I know this blog has been much better for that.
Still, December was a bit of a slow month, mainly because we didn’t have December 26 (Boxing Day up here in the Great White North and nobody was coming to that one).
Still, three games is not bad!
And since one of the three games was from 2001, even the Cult of the New to Me can’t really complain.
Not that they didn’t try.
I’m pretty sure they were talking about my second in command, though.
At least that’s what I like to believe.
Anyway, I hope you had a great holiday and welcome to a brand new year of 2022!
May it be much better than last year.
So, without further ado (all of my ado was used in some scheme to get some random people into some random castle anyway), let’s begin!
(You can click on each picture to expand it to a bigger size)
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Dude! Take Your Turn! 