Year in Gaming 2024

Here we are at the end of 2024. How was it for gaming for me?

Running Dungeon Fantasy

I GMed 13 sessions of DF Felltower this year.

Session 190, Felltower 128 - Exploring Level 1
Session 191, Felltower 129 - Troll Treasure & Orc Holes
Session 192, Felltower 130 - Down, down, down the GFS
Session 193, Felltower 131 - Olympus Gate II, Part I
Session 194, Felltower 131 - Olympus Gate II, Part II
Session 195, Felltower 131 - Olympus Gate II, Part III
Session 196, Felltower 132 - Wells, Pools, and Cultists of the Good God
Session 197, Felltower 133 - Chimera, Stone Bulls, and Baby Mira
Session 198, Brotherhood Complex 6 - Gnolls & Doors
Session 199, Brotherhood Complex 6 - Gnolls & Doors, Part II
Session 200, Brotherhood Complex 7
Session 201, Brotherhood Complex 8 - Raid, Part I
Session 202, Brotherhood Complex 8 - Raid, Part II - War of the Robots

This was good, but far less than the 20 I'd hoped for. In fact, this might be the lowest total we had any year since we started. I think it's because we now have a solid core of players, and instead of playing as often as we can, we play as often 75% of more of the core players can make a session. I'm giving some thought about to deal with this.

We lost a few players this year - well, one, and it's clear some of the others aren't coming back. Kevin left the group due to a difference in play style (I think.) I think I can pinpoint the moment it occured. It's okay - my game isn't for everyone, and I don't let players create problems for themselves (say, by trashing entrances to the dungeon so they're hard to use) and then solve them for them (by handwaving the "hard to use" part.) If that costs me players, it's okay. It's just a bummer because I think he left just before the PCs went off and did something he'd be have been terribly interested in.

I was pleased with a few things in-game this year:

- a return to Olympus. There is one more era left, now, and it's a doozy.
- an attempt to do things with the pools. Mostly wasted, but still, it was actual methodical exploration.
- a successful attempt to re-open ways into Felltower.
- the PCs finally found the domed city at the bottom of Felltower.
- a persistent attempt to wipe out the Brotherhood Complex's inhabitants.

Good stuff overall.

Playing RPGs

None. Not one session.

Other Games & Gaming

I was able to play some other games this year:

Board Games:

Third World War: Persian Gulf - I had a great time playing this one, but the randomized system I used for card selection left the Warsaw Pact (okay, USSR) with very little time to really seize the gulf. They ended up with a substantial, but unsustainable, advantage, before logistical breakdown left them in the lurch. A player-chosen diplomatic approach would have placed far more emphasis on getting forces into Iran early. Oh well.

Revolt on Antares - I didn't get to play but I did finally replace my set. I'll play this year.

Video games:

GTA 3: Vice City
Pathfinder: Kingmaker (Lawful Good Paladin aimed at getting the "best" ending)
Fantasy General (one battle left)
Grand Tactician: The American Civil War - played a short bit, I need to play more.

Not a great year for these games. I did get more done in Pathfinder, but as always I stall out in the complicated and not-terribly-fun phase-state House out of Time.

Writing

Almost none. My work-work got busy . . . I set myself a goal of +50% business for the year and met it. No time for writing with that going on.



Other stuff? No painting, although my readers (glasses) make it possible now. Lots of Felltower work. Some new gaming things I can enjoy to read and play with. But that's about it.

As years go for gaming . . . not bad, but not up to par. Next game is 1/12 and I hope to keep some kind of rhythm.

Ogre storage problem

I have an Ogre storage problem.

I've been storing my giant Ogre box upright, but everything keeps spilling out of the bottom trays into a giant mess.

Laying it flat "works" except it takes up too much space. I don't really have a good place to lay it flat and out of the way.

Anyone have a good solution for storing the massive Ogre box upright without everything just spilling? Do I need to get a bunch of ziplock bags, or jury rig some kind of lid for the trays?

In theory the maps do that . . . but I can vouch for the fact that, in fact, they do. What do you guys with the Kickstarter Deluxe Ogre extravaganza do for storage?

Return of my long-lost Car Wars countermix

Literally decades ago - probably almost 30 years ago now - I introduced a few of my gamers to Car Wars, Deluxe Edition. We played a game. Afterward, I left my whole countermix out on a table on top of the folded-up board from the Dungeon boardgame in the basement. Sometime later - the next day, maybe? - I went down to sort out my counters instead of having them all in one big pile.

They were gone. Nowhere to be found. I searched high and low, and found the Dungeon board on the table, but no counters. All gone.

I searched for quite a while, but assumed they'd been accidentally thrown out during some other cleanup in the basement.

So I literally replaced my entire collection to get a countermix. I found a Car Wars lot on Noble Knight and bought it. Deluxe Car Wars, Dueltrack, etc. I replaced a few map-and-counter supplements, too.

Flash forward to yesterday. I was cleaning out my comics collection, and one by one pulling bags from the comic long boxes and seeing what collection was in each. In one bag, along with a mix of comics, was a weird lumpy mass at the bottom of the oversized bag.

In it was my old countermix.

How it got there, I have no idea. Did someone in my family pour it into the bag and I didn't notice as I put comics in it?

We had cats. Was it possible one sat on the board, dumped the contents into the comics box and therefore the open bag? I used to keep my bagged comics right near my gaming table.

Did I put them away in that bag and complete forgot about it right away?

I have no idea.

But now, decades after my last game of DCW, I have two full countermixes. It's definitely my old countermix - I'd glued wrecks to the back of their unwrecked cars, colored a few favorite black and white counters with colored pencils, and otherwise customized things. And here it is.

Weird.

My replacement mix, sorted, and my old, unsorted mix:

Er, anyone for DCW-era Car Wars?

Revolt on Antares - repurchased

I had to do it. I finally got a new copy of Revolt on Antares, one of my favorite TSR minigames.

I have the rulebook, probably have the map . . . somewhere . . . and have some of the counters. I potentially could have kit-bashed a playable version. But I figured, what the heck, Noble Knight had a complete copy.

I can't wait to play it again, and this time, keep all of the pieces together. I'm not as prone to sloppy counter keeping as I was as a pre-teen.

TWW: Persian Gulf update

I've played a few more turns of Frank Chadwick's Third World War series game, Persian Gulf.

It's been a hot mess.

At the moment, we're just starting Pact First Impulse for War Turn 4.*

- the conflict went nuclear as fast as possible. On the end of War Turn 1. It narrowly avoided going from level 1 to level 2 last turn. All of this benefits the Pact, since Soviet forces get 2:1 on artillery/short range tactical nukes.

- the Pact luck on airpower kept up for 2 more weeks (turns). The RDF B-52 wing was out with maintenance issues for 2 weeks. They shot down the precious A-10s and turned about the AV-8Bs once as well. Severely weather kept the Western Asian theatre out of threat from NATO airpower.

- The Syrians got massacred. Their entire expeditionary force was wiped out after a severe brusing with the Iraqis. They tried to limp home but the Turks crushed them.

- The US 24th ID (real world - become the 4th ID) and a tank bridge and a few assorted units rushed a Soviet force and mauled them badly . . . but when the conflict went nuclear, they suffered from the exchanges. The 4th ID and attacked armored brigade barely escaped destruction, and were mauled badly enough to need to flee to the coast and to get evacuated to Saudi Arabia (well, Bahrain anyway) for reconstituion. In game terms, they have proficiency 7 and took 6 disruptions each. Ouch.

- The Soviet's first wave of reinforcements arrived while the Turks were finishing off the Syrians. Looking at the board, I chose a different approach. In the past, I'd used them to backstop my Iran positions and try to finish off American units. This time, Turkey seemed vulnerable. So I had them rush Turkey . . . and it worked. They smoked most of the defenses and are now debauching into northern Iraq.

- The US had to back off, the Jordanians are surrounded in Iran in Kurdistan, the Kurds have been mauled, the Turks are mauled, and there is little left of the rebel centrist Iranian army.

- But then, the worm turned a bit. A Soviet gambit to finish off the 24th ID cost them a Motor-Rifle Division (in NATO parlance, a mechanized division) . . . in fact thei best one (it was 9-9-6, when front line units in Germany are 10-9-6 and most on the flanks are 7-7-5). And then weather cleared over Western Asia, the B-52s were back in action . . . and turn 4 began.

- The US was able to, finally, use the B-52s for deep strike missions, and went after logistical depots. The B-52s inflicted 46 brigades worth of unsupplied markers in one massive strike. The Soviets had 43 brigades in theatre. So suddenly, the Pact units whooping it up and chasing the mauled RDF to the coast are unsupplied. There aren't remotely enough units to deprive to change this much (using emergency supply redirection to keep the key units in supply), but we'll see. If the US can keep this up, it might change the war. If not, this is a brief respite before the Soviets finish off the rebel units in Iran and crush most if not all of Iraq. We'll see.



* Turns are interesting. Once you do some preliminaries, you get Pact First Impulse, a second phase for Pact units not in a ZOC, then a NATO Reserve Impulse for units not in a ZOC, then a Pact Second Impulse and second phase, then two NATO phases. It's all based on doctrinal assumptions about how both sides make war. Potentially, a Pact unit can move 4x and recover damage 2x; a NATO unit 3x and 3x. Usually it's less thanks to ZOCs (zones of control) and movement.

TWW: Persian Gulf update

I decided after all to keep playing TWW: Persian Gulf as is.

I probably needn't have worried too much about the Soviets. They've steamrolled their way south, demolishing the few rebel units in their path and seizing a few important locations along the way. They managed to get as far as seizing Abadan and Shiraz. They had phenomenal luck with air defenses, and bad luck with ground attacks. The US tried to stop their steamroll with a B52 strike - which a lucky "6" aborted, and with an F-16 attack (halved by AA). Ground fire also aborted an A-10 deployment against one attack. Only some USMC AV-8Bs (Harriers) managed to get useful ground support in. But low rolls on the attacks meant they dealt damage but suffered disruptions across the board. Same with a Syrian attack on Iraqi units, which did nothing but bruise everyone.

However, the US RDF has landed and struck back. The first direct US vs. USSR fighting on the ground was a counterattack on Abadan. The Soviets held it with two MRDs (Motorized Rifle Divisions, which are mechanized infantry). The US counterattacked with the 82nd Airborne (airborne infantry), a helicopter brigade, the 9th Light Mechanized Division (light motorized, a division that never came to be as the game envisioned it), and some Iraqi units - some Revolutionary Guard tanks plus regular infantry and armored. The MRDs were forced to retreat and disrupted heavily passing through ZOCs on their way out. A Jordanian expeditionary force took Bakhtaran with some light Kurdish help. And the Iraqis counterattacked the Syrians and achieved as much as the Syrians had - mutual bruising, with the Iraqi suffering a lot of units damaged to two Syrian units banged up. Still, they're fixed in play with the Turks nearby . . . not that they can coordinate attacks as they're rival nations.

And the Iranian army, fighting on both sides, has suffered about 50% of so casualties in effective units. Ouch. The IRG took losses, too, but they can recruit replacements.

FWIW, if you're familiar with the game, I am using the Chemical Warfare rules, which inflicts extra damage on non-NBC equipped troops and reduces damage if one side doesn't have CW and the other does. It's a fun rule that makes the minor powers really minor, and what might be a soft target a bit harder when they'll use nerve gas against your unsuited troops.

The aborted A-10 mission was a godsend to the Soviets because they provide a 4-column shift in odds. Your 6-1 attack becomes 2-1, for example, and 3-1 becomes 1-2 (1.5-1 is a column). It stayed 6-1. And aborting that B52 strike was potentially short-term game-shifting. Most air units have a rating for air-to-air, ground attack, and strike ranging from 0-5. The Tu-96 Blackjacks have a 6. Otherwise, the heaviest strike wings have a 5. The B52? 10. That's enough to reliably inflict 2-3 disruptions on every unit struck, and potentially 10. The elite of the elite are eliminated with 9 disruptions, and most US units have 7, 8 for the elite, and Soviets 5, 6 or 7 for the elite. Oh, and it slows movement. No worries, AA got the mission nullified. It could have wrecked two soviet divisions right next to US forces that could counterattack . . . instead, nothing at all.

Now it's War Turn 1. I'll pick up there next time.

Overall, my strategy for the Soviets has been damn the torpedoes full speed ahead. I'll spend units like bullets if I have to in order to take cities for the victory points, and I'll need a big whack of them and some luck in the air war to crush the RDF. But the US doesn't get a lot of reinforcements, so do I slow it down and let the reinforcing armies roll up and make a big final push with everyone? I'm not sure. We'll see what it looks like after the Turks enter the war and if the Syrians can survive.

Year in Gaming 2023

Here we are at the end of 2023. How was it for gaming for me?

Running Dungeon Fantasy

Due to a TPK, this year was pretty odd for me - I actually got to play in a DF Felltower adjacent campaign GMed by one of my regular players, Vic.

So I GMed less sessions overall, but the net amount of DF Felltower-connected play wasn't as low as this seems. 2022 featured only 13 sessions for comparison to me GMing 12 this year - about one every 4 weeks.

Session 178, Brotherhood Complex 2 - Iron Knights
Session 179, Brotherhood Complex 3, Part I
Session 180, Brotherhood Complex 3 - Part II
Session 181, Brotherhood Complex 4, Part I
Session 182, Brotherhood Complex 4, Part II - Demon Grunts & Torturers
Session 183, Brotherhood Complex 5 - Gnolls (Part I)
Session 184, Brotherhood Complex 5 - Gnolls (Part II)
Session 185, Felltower 125 - Return to Felltower
Session 186, Felltower 125 - Return to Felltower Part II - Gnolls & A Level Too Far?
Session 187, Felltower 125 - Fighting the Werewolves
Session 188, Felltower 126 - Werewolf Loot & Crystal Gazing
Session 189, Felltower 127 - Quick Delve

It was great getting back to Felltower.

We added a couple of players, though - Doug and Kevin joined us. We didn't really lose anyone although Galen's player Mike only played in a session or two. Doug and Kevin have been excellent additions and have added a different approach to delving and character generation.

The Forge has been excellent, and Foundry is getting better and better. Still odd sometimes, and still lots of little issues, but overall I feel much more comfortable with it.

Playing RPGs

With our TPK in Session 184, caused by Ye Olde Let's Camp in This Dead End Tactic, we needed to reboot the party again. I didn't want to create yet another starting area, and Felltower isn't a great place for newbies anymore, after endless bottom feeding by high point guys cleaned out anything that wasn't a rat, an ooze, or a gargoyle from the upper levels. So Vic offered to run some games . . . and I suggested we port the characters from there back to Felltower.

We did that. It was a good experience - I'd never co-GMed anything like that before.

I played most of the sessions, missing only one because I didn't want to stay up all night in Japan to game from there.

Felltower Adjacent - Session 1
Felltower Adjacent - Session 2
Felltower Adjacent - Session 3
Felltower Adjacent - Session 5 - Scaring & Murdering Hobgoblins
Felltower Adjacent Session 6 - Traps & Temples of Orcus

There were 6 sessions and I played 5 of them, as you can see above. All in all, then, there were 18 sessions of Felltower-connected games run in 2023, and I played only 17 of them despite it being the campaign I initiated. Heh. Goes with my "our game" idea - Felltower is "mine" and I didn't even play all the sessions.*

AD&D

Another year with no AD&D. I expect this coming one will be the same, although I'm going to try otherwise. I expect the ship has sailed and no one wants to play AD&D anymore. I'm the only one who mentions it.

Other Games & Gaming

I was able to play some other games this year:

Board Games:

Fire in the Lake - simply beautiful, and amazing to play. Every turn feels like a dilemma.
Panzer Blitz - fun, but I'd actually rather play early-war scenarios, like 41-42.

Video games:

GTA 3: Vice City
Borderlands 2 (not so much of it, this year, but I still fired it up a few times)
Pathfinder: Kingmaker (running both my evil monk, and a Lawful Good Paladin aimed at getting the "best" ending)
Planescape: Torment enhanced edition (beautiful, and such a good game)
Fantasy General (almost finished it)
War in the East (played a couple of short scenarios)

I bought, but haven't yet played, Grand Tactician: The American Civil War.

Writing

I started work on a big project with Doug Cole, but SJG ended up putting it on hold for a while. Oh well.

I wrote a few other little things but without Pyramid, they don't have a home, but I like them too much to not try to find a way to turn them into a profit.

Overall, not a bad year in gaming. I'd like to get to 20+ sessions in 2024.





* I still shake my head over the hostile reaction I got in the comments on that one.

Panzer Blitz playthrough video - how I'll learn

Here is how I'll learn to play Panzer Blitz:


Seems like a good way to go. Watch and play along. 40 minutes seems long but it's less time than I'd expect to spend on turn 1 by myself fumbling through the rulebooks.

Panzer Blitz rules - thank goodness for the internet

A ways back, I purchased Panzer Blitz off of eBay. I didn't read the auction really closely, clearly. It was complete, all components included . . . except the rules of play.

Thanks to this site, I was able to get them:

Imaginative Strategist

I'm not 100% certain about their authorization to publish the rules . . . but I'd like to give a scenario or two a go, and while I do have Panzer Leader I know the rules aren't exactly the same. I have to see if it has the same "safety in numbers" issue vs. artillery that Panzer Leader has.

Assorted Links for 7/21/2023

A few things for tonight:

- There is a Kickstarter for a 10th anniversary special edition of Castle of the Mad Archmage. And here I just finally caved and got a copy. It's revised and $20 for the PDF.

- I'm struggling through extended solo play of Fire in the Lake. It's complex. I'm thinking I need to find a good playthrough video and play along for a little bit to get the hang of it. One suggestion I've read is to play a short game and not use events, just operations, for all of the factions, to get a feel for the operations. I'm not sure which I'll do but man it's dense stuff once you are loose on your own. Still interesting, though. Partly this makes me wish I'd started with something simpler, but honestly, Andean Abyss and this one are the most interesting to me and neither is supposed to be an easy starting point.

- I've had little time for gaming or reading as I'm prepping for a big trip and working around that. That said, we're gaming Sunday, or so I hear.

Fire in the Lake - 8-turn Tutorial

I just finished the scripted portion of the Fire in the Lake tutorial.
Sorry some of the pictures are a bit unclear, I'm still getting used to the lightning in my new gaming spot.

Here is a brief look at important points to understand the game.

- There are four sides. The NVA, the VC, ARVN, and the US. Each has their own victory conditions.

- The victory conditions of your "ally" doesn't match yours. They have partial overlap - both the US and ARVN benefit from pacified, controlled provinces. The VC and NVA both benefit from occupying territory and controlling it. But they also diverge. You can't have a joint victory. And sometimes your actions to help yourself can push your ally toward victory before you.

- Most of your actions come with a cost - resources (the US and ARVN spend from the same pool, the VC and NVA have seperate pools), reduced support (VC taxes drop support but raise resources, say, while US airstrikes remove enemy units and indirectly improve control but breed hostility from the population), or opportunity. Some actions require you to expose "underground" guerilla units to accomplish them, which open you up to destruction, but staying hidden eliminates your ability to take some actions.

- Often what you do to improve your position undermines your ally - the NVA can convert VC to NVA, the US can force ARVN to spend resources and take actions, and so on.

- There is very little randomness to actions. You roll for effects sometimes, but the core effect generally just works.

- The game is card driven, and acting costs you the chance to something the next turn, often a chance at a good card. You can see the next card coming and try to plan accordingly. Basically only two factions get to act or pass on a given turn. Going makes you ineligible the next turn, unless there is a coup.

- There are a series of Coup cards, which force victory checks and reset the game's rhythm.

In country:

I'm still in Saigon. So are 1 US base, 2 US troops, 2 ARVN troops, and 3 ARVN Police. The area is under COIN (counter-insurgency) control, with passive support from the population of 6. You can see VC and NVA (blue and red, respectively) out provinces.

I Corps becomes a battleground. The NVA infiltrated in 6 units of guerillas. Airstrikes and reinforcements would reduce this down. The province is under NVA control because they outnumber everyone else there - including the VC, importantly.

You can see Hue, the cirle overlapping the province. It's full of US troops, ARVN, ARVN police, and one VC unit that just caused a terror event.

I'm still having trouble recognizing the place names . . . that'll come. Hue, Saigon, Laos . . . those are easy. But Quang Nam vs Quang Ti vs. Quang Duc . . . tougher. I have to search the map until I find them.

Here are a couple of cards - the left is the current, and the VC would use it to terrorize Hue. The right is the next card. At the top is the order of selection, telling you which of the eligible factions goes in what order that turn.

Overall impression?

I like the game. There are a lot of rules, but few come into play any given turn. Turns aren't the slog they'd appear - you are limited in what you can do, and you don't act every turn. You need to plan ahead but you don't get too much of a glimpse at what's coming. I had fun during the tutorial and I'm curious how I'll do playing a faction "against" non-player factions run according to a flow chart. For now, I'll play a short game or two playing all sides just to get familiar with what I'm doing before I try to play a single faction to win.

Fire in the Lake setup in progress

Table is ready, game is out, and the board is down flat.

I should be able to start play Wednesday.

I have the card set up for the tutorial. I just need to put down all of the wooden bits. I'm quite pleased to have gotten this far. All of that waiting and now I've got a week and a table and I plan to make the best use of it I can.

Random Thoughts & Links for 2/10/2023

Here are some links and thoughts for Friday.

- I enjoyed these two looks at a boardgame of the Battle of Poltava. I've long been very interested in Russian history, especially the reign of Peter I, first emperor of Russia.

Battle Of Poltava

Battle of Poltava 1709

Both give a good look at how to use game design and rules to channel a game down a specific path. Historically, the Swedes wanted to bypass some Russian redoubts and assault the Russian main force . . . but units misunderstood their orders and tried to assault them, throwing the plan off and - eventually - helping the Russians to achieve victory. The rules of this game force you to play out that misunderstanding, yet don't essentially force you to lose.

- I love these posts. I especially love how unfair the stats are. You need +1 weapons to hit Iuz, but he can create an Anti-Magic Shell at will which will make your weapons no longer magical . . . so you can't hit him. It's only a fair-ish fight if he decides he wants one, and only as long as he wants it to be.

Let's Fight Iuz

- The March Harrier campaign has begun. And much like - okay, exactly like - my two Traveller campaigns, they feature Vargr and the party almost immediately thumbs their collective noses at local authorities and culture and resorts to crime. My experience with Traveller is this:

"We're running a merchant campaign."
"Okay, we casually resort to crime in 3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . . go!"

March Harrier Session 1
March Harrier Session 2

- I like weird henchmen. d4 Caltrops aids in this.

D100 Henchmen Foibles

- Little things I didn't know. I was re-reading a Glen Cook short story compilation. In it is a short story set in the Dread Empire that he wrote while staying with Fritz Leiber, while Leiber was writing "Swords Against Death." I quoted from The Bazaar of the Bizarre from that collection a week ago. He mentioned them featuring each other's characters in their stories. So is it possible that Zindahjira, the Silent One - described by Aristithorn of Necromnos as "Biggest windbag in the trade" - is Ningauble of the Seven Eyes under a different name? A thin thread . . . I'd be curious to ask Glen Cook that.

Fire in the Lake-sized table acquired. Kinda.

Good news - I have a table space enough the size of South Vietnam . . . in Fire in the Lake!

Bad news - it's not actually my table. I may have to negotiate for use.

But it's a step forward. Onward to victory!

Fire in the Lake Tutorial setup

I'm starting to work on playing Fire in the Lake.

The issue is logistics. Amateur wargamers talk about tactics, grognard wargamers talk about logistics. Like, as in . . . how do I do this?

The map is 34" x 22" and shows all of South Vietnam and the bordering provinces of Laos and Cambodia, too. It leaves me a bit of an issue - I need some room to play. I don't intend to leave this on the floor, but I don't have a table quite big enough that isn't already in use for something else. The others are a bit small. The card table is a no-go.

Learning how to play involves a move-by-move tutorial. The rules themselves are very slender, but learning how to apply them will take some time. It's easier to follow along on the tutorial. It's just a matter of space.

So tonight is all game prep - punching the counters, sorting them, arranging the cards per the tutorial. I'm hoping to figure out space this week to start playing solo. The game is gorgeous, the topic interesting, and the concept behind the COIN series is fascinating.

Hmmm . . . maybe those two little end tables with some tape to make sure they don't slide apart . . .

Fire in the Lake - first look

I finally had the time to pull the shrink wrap off of Fire in the Lake, 3rd edition, from GMT games.

It's beautiful.

The manuals are nice and crisp, with very clear writing and on high-quality matte paper.

The map board and cards are equally nice.

And the pieces are attractive but admittedly a little small. I need to take an inventory before I lose an ARVN unit or a VC base.

The counters are heavy cardstock and mounted. I need to find a good video showing how to best cut them free. I'd like cleanly punched counters.

I've started to read over the materials. I'll admit it's hard to not just look at the book in awe and leave everything as-is. I need to find some space to set the game up and then start to work through the tutorial elements included. There is just so much here. This isn't the ideal starting point into the COIN series. I've been told that Cube Libre is a good place to start, and I'm deeply fascinated by Andean Abyss. But nothing has quite grabbed me as much as the Vietnam War. It's such a refreshing idea to think of the VC, NVA, ARVN, and US as different groups with different goals, instead of the usual "NVA with VC henchmen" vs. "US with cruddy ARVN allies." It's not 1 vs. 1 but rather 1+1 (but actually 1v1) vs. 1+1 (also actually 1v1). It's going to be hard to play this solo but I think that's all I have for now.

Overall I'm very pleased with my purchase and I plan to play this ASAP. That won't be too soon, but can't be soon enough. I'm very impressed with what I've seen so far, and I came in with high expectations.

Fire in the Lake - Arrived!

Well, hurrah! My copy of Fire in the Lake arrived!

I'll put up some pictures and such when I get a chance. But after all of those posts bemoaning the delay wait, it's here! And naturally I'm busy and can't even open the box until tomorrow. Heh. And due to some living space arrangement issues I don't have an open table to play on just yet.

Coincidentally, my local library finally got my reading copy of the book Fire in the Lake today, so I'll pick that up so I can read one as I prep to play the other.

Fire in the Lake . . . still waiting

I amused myself earlier this year by hoping I'd have Fire in the Lake during August, when I'd have a bit of time to sit and play it.

So far, that is not the case.

It's still At the Printer, with 931 orders. It has to go to charging, and then shipping. So it's another step away at least.

Boo.

I still want it, very much, but it's getting less likely I'll get it when I have free time to really dig into it.

Trogdor Expansion

I'm going to pass, for now, but there is an expansion for Trogdor!! The Board Game.

Magicks and ‘Mergencies Expando Deck for Trogdor!! The Board Game

Let Strongbad explain what it's about.

Big Ogre Battlemats pre-order

In case I got this email but you did not:



I'm good on battlefields for my Ogres, but if you need a 3' x 3' battlemat, you're in luck!