Dude! Take Your Turn!
A Gaming Life
Combat Commander Europe – #7 Bessarabian Nights
I know, I know. Three Combat Commander posts in a row? I promise I will be posting something different soon, but during my blog hiatus, I wanted to continue to reblog Michal’s brilliant session reports of our Combat Commander games.
This scenario was so chaotic that it was fun! Even though the randomness of my setup made the game almost unwinnable for me. My leaders had no infantry near them!
Anyway, it was still a blast to play, and I wouldn’t mind revisiting it sometime.
Enjoy Michal’s write-up. It’s insane! (the scenario, not the write-up)
Unbelievable, but this was already 7th Combat Commander Europe scenario we played with Dave since January. Recently we added – to our daily routine of exchanging the game log files via Discord – one live session per week. It is not easy to find a slot as there is 9 hours difference between Poland end West Canada. Still, thanks to Dave sacrificing one lunch hour we managed to enrich our gaming experience with this online session.
Other Combat Commander camping with Dave:#1 FatLipki#2 Hedgroves and HandGrenades#3 Bonfire of theNKVD#4 Closed forRenovation#5 Cold Front#6 Paralyzed from the West Down
What we played this time? #7 Bessarabian Nights – one of the most volatile and crazy scenarios we have seen so far. But first thing first – historical background. It is 1944 and partisan activity at the rear of Wehrmacht is increasing with advancing Red…
View original post 463 more words
Combat Commander – After Action Report – Scenario #23 – No-Man’s Land
After taking the month of June off for personal reasons, I was eager to play the July scenario for the Combat Commander: Europe ladder (run by the illustrious Patrick Pence).
After winning the May game (my first official win!), I had already moved up the ladder to #35. My opponent this time was Sean Burns and the contest arena was scenario #23 from the Combat Commander: Mediterranean expansion, pitting the Italians (me) against the British (Sean) in the desert of North Africa.
First, I want to thank Sean for bearing with me as I had microphone problems, so we ended up having to use the VASSAL chat function rather than actually talking. That really sucked.
Basically, both the Italians (greenish-blue?) and British (tan) have dug in on their side of the board (a line of trenches on both sides), but the British have snuck a “sniper” into position to harass the Italian lines (in the game, this is a leader with a heavy machine-gun in an advance foxhole).
Sean set the sniper (Corporal Singh) up in hex H1 (the only other choice was H10) and then had the rest of the troops positioned centrally in the British trench line. He also has a radio that can lay down some heavy fire or (most probably) a lot of smoke.
Read MoreCombat Commander Europe – #6 Paralyzed from the West Down
I’ve been remiss in reblogging these excellent Combat Commander session reports written by Michal!
This is Scenario 6, and it was a really fun game. We did discover after the fact that the Objective R is supposed to be an Open objective even if it’s drawn by a player, so it shouldn’t have been a surprise.
But what a tense game and I’ve discovered that I’m a much better attacker than defender.
I will be reblogging Scenario #7’s AAR soon!
Thanks, Michal, for doing such a great job posting these.
With great pleasure I would like to invite you guys to already 6th installment in our ambitious project – playing with Dave all twelve Combat Commander Europe Base Game scenarios. With every game we learn more and more about that fantastic system, we refine our tactics and approaches, we learn cards and what the opponent can do should we decide to pursuit some particular path. Today I am presenting scenario number six – #06 Paralyzed from the West Down. As always, let me invite you to picture-rich session report!
Other Combat Commander camping with Dave:#1 Fat Lipki#2 Hedgroves and Hand Grenades#3 Bonfire of the NKVD#4 Closed for Renovation#5 Cold Front
It is June 7th, 1944. Overlord – The largest amphibious operation ever conducted – has just started. The German soldiers (Michal, defender) were completely surprised by the speed and ferocity of Allied (Dave, attacker)…
View original post 515 more words
Concordia Digital Edition in Beta Soon!
Just saw a tweet and received an email today from Acram Digital, the brilliant programmers behind Istanbul and many other great boardgame apps.
Remember I mentioned that Concordia is the new game from them?
They just released a trailer for it and the beta for it is now open!
The beta sign-up is on the tweet, and I jumped on it as soon as I saw it.
It looks like it’s coming out this Autumn and I for one can’t wait.
It’s not a huge favourite of mine but it is a game I quite enjoy and having a lot of the fiddly stuff taken care of by the app will really help it, I think.
Hopefully I’ll be able to bring you a review of it when it comes out and, if I make it into the beta, I’ll have some first impressions for you.
Until then, get signed up yourself and maybe we can play a game!
Boardgame Geek Top 300 – Play or Played – #270-261
I know it’s been a while (my last post was May 28), but here were finally are with another entry in the COVID-long series of posts about games on Boardgame Geek and whether or not I’ve played them.
Thankfully, it looks like the main issues with the pandemic will be over before I have to go to the Top 300.
In fact, I have my first shot and should be getting my second one sometime in July. Maybe I’ll be back at our Sunday Fun Day in August!
I sincerely hope so.
Seriously, this is me begging you. If you’re reluctant to get your shot for whatever reason, know that it’s worth it. Whatever side effects *might* happen, the risk and the results of getting COVID are far worse.
It’s been almost 2 months since I did the last of this series of postings. My apologies for that. Things have been…not good around here lately and it’s been hard to muster the energy for it.
But I am persevering and I finally got this one done!
Let’s hope this continues.
Just a reminder that this is the list as of February 8, when I downloaded it from BGG. I’ve made note of changes in position since then, of course.
Yes, it’s taken me that long.
So let’s get this party started!
And when I say “party,” I mean a polite social gathering of no more than 10 people (until at least July 1).
Read MoreDominion App From Temple Gates Games – Beta First Impressions
It’s really cool to be involved with something that not everybody else has access to.
Hell, that’s why I started this blog!
Not that this has really manifested too much, but I did manage to get into the beta version of the Dominion app that Temple Gates Games is releasing, as I mentioned last week.
So far, the beta has been pretty interesting and I can already see that there is a lot of polish with the game.
Sure, there are a bunch of bugs, but this is a beta so of course there’s going to be.
You know what this beta has mostly taught me?
That I suck at Dominion.
However, the app itself seems very cool.
Read MoreReview – Raiders of the North Sea Big Box
One of the first posts I did on this blog talked about how board game box inserts can be so important.
The problem with even good inserts has always been “what about the expansion(s)?”
That’s a viable point. I’ve seen many games where the insert is awesome, but as soon as an expansion is released, the insert has to go away because it’s not designed to fit anything other than what came in the base game.
That’s why the latest “Big Box” phenomenon is so intriguing, because it’s basically releasing a box, with some extra content (maybe a few extra cards, maybe some card sleeves), and that’s it. No new game play, maybe some deluxe versions of tiles and such (like the Terrforming Mars big box that’s also a deluxe version of the game with awesome tiles and plastic in addition to being a Big Box).
Or you could do what Garphill Games (and Renegade Games Studios) is doing with some of their games.
Yes, this is a review of my recently acquired Raiders of the North Sea Big Box, and I have to say it is awesome. (see my review of the game here)
Read MoreClassic Dominion Coming Digitally by Temple Gates Games
Boardgame Twitter was all abuzz this morning with the final announcement that the classic deck-building game Dominion, the game that started it all, will be coming out later this year as a digital app!
The card game was designed by Donald X. Vaccarino and published by Rio Grande Games.
Noted app company Temple Gates Games is behind this beautiful production and, given their track record (app versions of Shards of Infinity, Roll for the Galaxy and Race for the Galaxy), could Dominion finally be done right after a history of terrible apps from other companies?
I have every faith that it will be.
For a number of reasons.
Read MoreReview – Speakeasy Blues
There have been a few games published recently about Prohibition and various alcohol-related activites.
I fully endorse more of that! *hic*
One of the ones that looked really cool but I never pulled the trigger on buying it was Speakeasy Blues.
When the pandemic hit and I was looking for stuff to play with my wife, this popped up on one of my boardgame store sites and I took a second look, finally deciding to pick it up.
Speakeasy Blues was designed by Adrian Adamescu and Daryl Andrews with art by Heiko Günther, Don Whitson. It was published in 2018 by Artana Games.
I’ve always wanted to run a speakeasy. So what’s held me back?
A couple of things.
First, my business sense is horrendous.
And secondly, booze isn’t, you know, illegal anymore.
Does the game make you feel like you are, though?
Let’s take a look.
Read MoreCombat Commander – After Action Report – Scenario #112 – Sonnenwende
You may have noticed that I’m kind of obsessed with Combat Commander right now.
If not, I don’t know how you could have missed it.
Patrick Pence, of Patrick’s Tactics and Tutorials Youtube fame, runs a Combat Commander ladder on Boardgame Geek where players play one scenario a month against others on the ladder.
Essentially, it’s a ranking system and you (usually) play the player that’s above you or below you on the ladder.
After playing some PBEM games with Michal from the Boardgame Chronicle, I decided to join the Ladder and get some real-time games in against multiple opponents.
My first game was last night, and it was a hell of a lot of fun! Steve C from the ladder volunteered to play against me since the guy I would normally play couldn’t play this month.
This month’s scenario was called Sonnenwende, a struggle between German troops and Soviet troops in the streets of Berlin in 1945.
I was assigned the Germans and Steve the Soviets.
The Soviets have a ton of Assault troops and SMG troops as well as flamethrowers and satchel charges designed to take out bunkers. They also have powerful artillery.
The Germans have elite SS troops as well as conscripts, as well as a couple of heavy machine guns, a number of bunkers and trenches, wire and mines that will fortify the defense of the main building (Objective 5 in the north of the map).
Here’s the initial setup.
One bunker behind all that wire in the north, and then one each in the street in the south covering crossroads. There are also trenches in and next to the objective building too.
Read More
Dude! Take Your Turn! 