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By Mark D, September 16, 2012 2:38 am

If I inspired this type of stupidity and no talent hacks who thought they could act, I would retire too. This first guy might take the cake:

All of the wonders of TGWTG rolled into a ball of awful whiteness. If you can make it through this 7 minute video, your more insane then me, because I stopped 2 minutes in. This guy is stalking you, Doug Walker.

I think this guy wants to eat you, Nostalgia Critic. Either that or he’s one of Saun Fausz’s relatives who is sad that that fat ass might actually have to get a real job. You mean Doug Walker might not hire this guy to be in his new series? He apparently will be able to cry at the drop of a hat, so he’s got that going for him.

Continue reading 'Why the Nostalgia Critic Retired'»

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By Mark D, July 5, 2012 2:04 pm

While I’m probably not the biggest buff when it comes to the Eastern Front of WW2, the Battle of Stalingrad has always been one of my favorite battles to learn about. Given this, it shouldn’t come to much of a surprise that I’ve picked up quite a few Stalingrad based games to try to re-enact the desperate struggle that took place in the streets and houses of Stalingrad. Battles were waged not just over whole houses, but between the basement and the 2nd floor, between the same floor but different rooms. The rat war as the Germans called it slowly wore down the Blitzkreig.

But most wargames cover operation uranus, the flank attack on the Germans which captured the 6th Army within the City. Or the many attempts to break out the 6th Army from the city. Although it is interesting, I really would like to try the fighting within the city. Without getting as complicated as some of the rules for Advance Squad Leader. Storm Over Stalingrad, although it might not exactly be building by building, is as close as you can find without a huge rulebook.

The game is deep but simple. The city of Stalingrad is split into different regions, with each region having a defense value printed on it from 1-3. This is how the victory conditions of the game are decided, as the players declare before the game how many of those +3 areas they will hold at the end of the game. The higher total takes over the Soviets. Each player gets a certain number of action cards with special effects on them depending on the turn.

Each unit has two sides. It’s normal side in which it has an Attack/Defense/Move values, and a spent side which has a defense value. On your impulse you can fire, move, pass or play a card in place of your turn. If you fire or move, the unit is flipped to it’s spent side after it’s done. Firefights are done by either units firing into an adjacent region or units from the same region firing at the opposing sides units. The Germans can’t just dispute control of a region, they have to actually drive the Soviets out.

So you add up all the firepower values, roll two 6 sided dice, add that together and you have your fire value. You then subtract that from the other sides defensive value (highest defending units defense value + defense value of region) for the number of flips the defender is going to have to take. The defender can retreat units, flip units to their spent side, flip units to the eliminated box or any combination of those three.

The Soviets have a number of units that are simply there to hold space. They don’t have an attack value. So as the Germans move in, if the Soviets can keep those units in the region it not only holds the region, but allows units further back with higher firepower to fire on the Germans. But this relatively simple gameplay gives itself to a deep game that is also relatively quick while holding a lot of tension.

The game play is as tight as you would expect over the Battle of Stalingrad. During one of my first games I thought I was making headway as the Germans. Then when I had spent all my units my opponent began firing back, decimating my units. With it being one of my earlier games I was still able to get close to capturing enough +3 regions, although in the end I fell short. There shouldn’t be too many big mistakes in the game that will throw the game to one side or another irreparably.

I believe Storm Over Stalingrad might be out of print now. But if your interested in the battle for the streets and houses of Stalingrad this is as close as you can get. It’s simple enough that you can probably consider it a beer and pretzels war game. But it’s not the dice rolling fest that’s a specialty of that genre. I’d highly recommend the game if you can get your hands on it. It might be a good pickup for people that are new to wargames but have an interest in the East Front or the Battle of Stalingrad.

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By Mark D, January 10, 2012 4:34 pm

I take a look at the Civil War Card Game Rebs & Yanks

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By Mark D, December 25, 2011 7:39 pm

While one of my favorite subjects is the American Civil War, I do tend to concentrate on the eastern theater of the war instead of the west. I think it’s mostly due to the personalities, and something about Stonewall Jackson that captured my imagination. Of course there was Nathan Bedford Forrest out west, but most of the other personalities were in general solid, able commanders who died for their commanders blunders. I’ve read up on the defenses of Bragg, but in the end it still appears that he hurt his own cause more then he helped.

So other then Pea Ridge and Shiloh, I haven’t played many western battles of the Civil War. Not too long ago I got “War of the States: Chickamauga & Chattanooga” on a relatively cheap deal. I’ve managed to do that quite a bit with titles from Avalanche Press, but so far I haven’t had a complaint about them. Then again I’m not expecting much when I’m not paying a lot for a game. I’ve always considered myself leaning more towards the beer & pretzel or bucket of dice kind of game, and WOTS:C&C is both.

There is one major problem that you will notice right away looking at the map:

That’s the setup at turn 1, and the Brown roads that run through the borders (and the rivers for that matter) tend to make it tough to tell where some borders start and end. For me though at least the folds for the map tend to stay down and don’t upset the counters unlike a lot of other maps. Speaking of the counters they are beautiful, but are somewhat tough to differentiate for setup. The setup charts don’t tell you which symbol is for the corps and which is for the division, so I tended to reverse the division/corps number for the counters.

The game is rather easy to teach. Each unit has a fire and morale rating. The fire rating adds into the number of 6 sided dice a side uses with 6 being hits. The stack with the better morale adds another dice. I should mention I am always bad at teaching games. That’s why I try to stay away from the rules when reviewing games. Each general has an initiative rating, it’s importance being that both sides roll a dice at the beginning of the turn. The side with the higher roll (using initiative as a DRM) goes first for that turn. So Rosecrans and his 5 rating tends to go first before Bragg who has a 3. Then you would roll and whatever amount you roll under the initiative. So if Rosecrans rolls a 3 he can activate 2 corps, and if Bragg rolls a 2 he can activate 1 corps. So the Union tends to get more moves and the South ends up reacting more.

People have complained about the system, but in my opinion the Army of Tenseness tended to have poor overall commands and some commanders who would flat out refuse to listen to Bragg. The Battle of Chickamauga itself was lost more because of a poor command from Rosecrans (which opened a hole in the front line) then anything the Confederates or Bragg did. Bragg even managed to fumble the victory, as it took 21 different assaults to finally force back Thomas. Those assaults were haphazardly thrown together instead of one concentrated assault that would have easily destroyed Thomas.

The game plays quickly, although the one in six chance of a hit tends to be frustrating. Sometimes you can role ten dice versus four and just have luck go against you and take two hits while giving none. I’ve never really complained about luck in a game though, because I think luck is always something important in a battle.  People have also complained about the high amount of casualties, mostly based on the multiple counters for each division. Most divisions have 4 counters with weakening strength on each side. So if you stand your ground instead of retreating for step hits you can run through counters quickly.

I also liked Across 5 Aprils, just to give you some background on the type of civil war games I do like. I tend towards the lesser heavy simulation games (For example I dislike The Gamers Civil War Brigades Series) and this felt pretty solid. There is some trouble reading the rules that I had mentioned before, and some ambiguous moments.

But a lot of the complaints about the game seem to be complaints that are common among avalanche press. But so far in my experiences I haven’t had a problem with their games yet. I still have some that I have to play. After playing this I want to give a try with the first game of the series which is based on Gettysburg. I think I also have some of the series that this is based on, War of the Empires, a Napoleonic era game.

There are probably better games out there , and better games covering Chickamauga and Chattanooga. I think I paid 15 bucks for the game and felt like I got my money worth. I’d also love to sometime try the campaign that combines both battles into a massive game. I wouldn’t tell you to go out and particularly look for the game. It would definitely be one of those things you keep in your peripheral vision.

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By Mark D, November 3, 2011 2:56 pm

The Command and Colors system has always been one of my favorites. It was one of the first games (Battlecry) I got when I was getting into board games. Across the board they play relatively easy. Units are made of 2, 3 or 4 figures, they move and attack based on cards, which most often are broken into sectional attacks (left, center and right). Figures are eliminated due to hits, and when a whole unit is removed the other side gains a victory point. Sure there’s more to the games that came out, but that is a quick and dirty breakdown.

Battlecry came out first, covering the American Civil War and was recently re-released. Then came Battlelore (medieval and fantasy) Memoir 44 (WW2) and Command and Colors: Ancients. While Battlecry was one of the last releases of the AH-Hasbro brand, BL and M44 were each released by Days of Wonder, while the C&C banner has been used by GMT. I own all of them except Ancients (which I have played some of) and own multiple expansions for both Battlelore and Memoir 44. I was borderline on Napolenics, but got a good deal when I purchased it around last Christmas with Here I Stand.

Napolenics has all the normal hallmarks of a C&C game, the cards, sections, Calvary, Infantry and Artillery. It also uses the blocks much like Ancients. Which is a pain because you need to sticker an endless number of blocks. It took me most of the day to get through everything and the dice which need to be stickered too. Although stickering everything annoys me, having to sticker the dice is a pet peeve of mine. Otherwise though the components are solid, and they give you plenty of extra stickers/blocks. The mapboard is solid, the cards are of a good paperstock and everything is of GMT expected quality.

The problem with the game, at least imho, is that it tries to do too much and isn’t good at what it does. C&C is never going to be a simulation of an actual battle. Most people get that, and enjoy it because it’s simple to play. But while the first few games of the series took periods which have both casual and hardcore elements, the Napolenic period tends to attract the more hardcore elements. Or it’s just a period whose popularity isn’t as high as either the Civil War or WW2 in North America, so those looking for games from the period tend to be a bit more well informed.

By saying that it tries to do too much, is that instead of just being infantry, you have multiple types of infantry, multiple types of Cav and two types of artillery. The problem is that each unit tends to have it’s own rules, which then need to be cross referenced with the nation it’s from. Not all the same infantry has the same number of blocks across all three (French, British and Spainish), making setup a bit of a pain in the ass. While firing will be dependent on how many squares you have, it also depends on if you have moved and nationality.

This is different from every C&C game that had come out so far. I think it really tends to slow down the game here, especially when the name of units can be so close. For example the British have “Rifle Light” and “Light” infantry, whose names are easy to confuse. Even worse is that the name themselves are very small on the bottom of the blocks, and the pictures tend to not really differentiate the types of units (infamously the horse artillery doesn’t have horses on it).

I really think the C&C system is spread thin here. Your never going to turn a C&C game into a historical simulation. In trying to do so or even coming close they weighed down the game. Just as another example the game contains a reference sheet for terrain and another reference booklet (2 pages, front and back) for the units. For something that worked so well in the past, the simplicity of the game seems missing.

It still plays fast, and your still recommended to play both sides of a battle to find out a winner. You’ll probably spend more time setting up then playing. Another little complaint is that I’ve always considered the Spanish/Portuguese battles to be a secondary theater when it came to the Napoleonic Wars. Yet the introductory battles that come with this game are almost overwhelmingly from Spain, and truthfully very few of them I had heard of before. Austerlitz is missing, there are no Italian battles, and the only battle I did know that was included was Waterloo. It’s almost like making a Civil War game and not having any battles (or just Gettysburg) of the Eastern Theater.

I really can’t recommend the game unless your either a fan of the period, or a huge fan of C&C that is looking for something new. Everything in the C&C system has been done better before, and I’ve seen fan made Napolenic scenairos for Battlecry that were a lot simpler. I can’t blame them for what they were trying to do, I just think if your the average C&C player and come into Napoleonic, you might be a little bit surprised.