First Aussie Maths Trade Retrospective

As we head into the Second Aussie Maths Trade, let's take a look back at what happened in the first - in particular, how successful have the games I received been? We can assume I only traded away things I didn't expect to play, so if I played what I did get, I've won. N'est-ce pas?

Architekton - played once with Scrabblette. She wasn't impressed. I'd play it again but may not have that choice.

Clans - played five times so far, I think. This was a very successful trade.

Attribute - played four times so far. I don't like it so much, but my kid refuses to let me give it to my sister. So, I guess that was successful.

Terrace - played once, and I'd be happy to be rid of it, but the kid likes it and won't let me. Apparently my game collection is a democracy now.

Blackbeard (old edition) - I received two copies, and played one of them solitaire. It was a fairly sucky game but I will probably do it again one day. I'm trying to trade off the second (better) copy.

Warhamster Rally - One play. I like it, but the kid says it's like Roborally but too hard. OK, the hex map is confusing. I'm keeping it for the moment.

Keythedral - unplayed so far, but I really really want to. It's the sort of game I like. After playing Key Harvest I'm really getting into Richard Breese.

Scotland Yard - unplayed so far. I'll have to remember to start taking it out with me.

Cabale - only one play, and it was alright. It will really be up to Scrabblette whether it hits the table again or not.

Stonehenge - I haven't played this yet though I'm interested in playing the Faidutti game. Some of the others stink. It's a bit of a disappointment.

Meridian - played twice so far. Scrabblette seemed to like it, but we haven't played again, and it went over OK at Critical Mass despite a massive rules screw-up.

Hacienda - I love this game! It has become one of my hits for the year, and I'm amazed to find out I've only played it 3 times. I must get it out more!

Overall, 19 plays, and Hacienda, Clans and Meridian (and Attribute, I guess) have found homes where they're very much appreciated. I guess it's not such a brilliant success rate, but it's better than paying full price for games on spec.

If You Drink Then BGG You're a Bloody Idiot

Had a glass of wine with dinner, visited BGG, now I'm running a Maths Trade.

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/35609

Fair enough, I did trade the second-most games last time. I'll see if I can get Gomez on the hook for next time.

Ooh! Ooh! I Have an Idea!

I was just pondering the futility of being sick and staying home and still not having an opponent to play games against. So it occurred to me that if I was really smart I'd get a medical degree and work part-time. I'd still be immensely rich AND I'd be able to write doctor's certificates for my game buddies like CyberKev and Ozvortex, and they'd be able to stay away from work and play games with me. Ooh! Isn't that cunning?

Then it dawned on me... Mikey and Dupytren have already done this...

O'Brien Loses!

I was sick yet again today - Scrabblette and I have been plagued with colds all winter long. At least this time I felt well enough to have another bash at ASL. I had unfinished business with the first scenario and wanted to know what would happen if the Germans played better. Of course, for old times' sake I used Sgt O'Brien as the American commander in the middle of Vierville. He did a very good job there last time when the Americans won, but I was rooting for the Germans this time.

As a quick aside, I have played games with a fellow who always plays Germany. I thought that was just a forgivable quirk, but have since got the feeling he's a white supremacist of some sort. Apparently they're just misunderstood patriots... anyway, rest assured I'm nothing like that. It really disturbs me that such people still exist.

Anyway, the Germans brought on their first two squads - Baumann to oppose O'Brien in the town, and Harpe to the intersection to guard the road in from the north where the American forces were. Praun brought reinforcements through the forest to the south of the town.

This plan worked well for a while, as Harpe's control of the road prevented the Americans from entering the town. Eventually however a detachment of O'Briens squad and the reinforcements forced Harpe out of his shelter.

In the town, O'Brien had had some success in fighting off Baumann, but Weiss arrived with more reinforcements. Praun had no success at dislodging O'Brien.

With Harpe's forces scattered, American reinforcements under Dunn swept into town. Baumann was killed, but his troops were rallied by Weiss who advanced again to face O'Brien.

Weiss's reformed squad attacked O'Brien with everything they had. Suddenly, Praun and his men made a run for the building at L3, the only victory point they had any chance of reaching. The Americans, now abandoned by the scaredy-cat O'Brien, were unable to bring sufficient firepower to bear to stop Praun, and he reached the safety of the building.

It was now the last turn of the game, and the Americans needed to dislodge Praun from L3 to win the game. Dunn's stack had 36 fire power, so they stormed the building to destroy the German forces.

Dunn was pinned by the defensive fire, and without his leadership the Germans' 15 fire power forced all of the Americans to flee for cover. When the game ended, Praun controlled L3 and the Germans won.

It might sound like the Germans got lucky, and indeed they did. The Americans didn't make a mistake in not covering L3 - O'Brien just didn't have the fire power to look after it, and Dunn had been held off by Harpe for so long he was unable to arrive in time to save the day. The unluckiness for the Americans was that Dunn got pinned in the final attack - he missed his morale check by 1, and that prevented his -2 DRM from being applied for the rest of the stack. Anything from that stack that didn't break would have gone into L3 during the advance phase, and the game would have been decided by Close Combat.

I was very impressed by the way Harpe's squad was able to control the road enough to hold back the Americans' overwhelming force. Harpe's guns had 6 range which meant they could shoot to the very west side of the map in normal range. It was impossible to sneak past them. I was also impressed by how long O'Brien hung on - Praun and Baumann initially intended to drive him out of his building and occupy N6 and N5, but he just wouldn't go.

I do like this game, it's a pity there are so many rules. I forgot to use CX counters this time, and I even forget why you would. The next scenario has machine guns which come with a whole lot more rules. Oh dear.

Life Intrudes

Loyal readers, please excuse me for my recent lack of postings! I've been very busy not playing games, and it's shown in the number of interesting things I can think of to tell you. I'm now on my third cold for the season. Scrabblette is as well, except she hasn't had any obvious breaks between them, so she's been constantly sick since the beginning of July.

Yesterday was the second anniversary of Scrabblette and I meeting (and also her birthday), so I asked her to marry me. And she said yes. The first person she told was the kid, who'd suspected something like that might happen although he had no inside knowledge whatsoever. I think he's been nagging her about it for a while. I guess he approves.

Anyway, I had a very good day of gaming on Saturday... let's see if I get back here soon to write about it.

WTFCAIRNS?

I'm very bad at taking holidays. I only just figured this out this year. My ex-wife used to organise holidays all the time and I didn't cope very well with that but at least we went. Neither Scrabblette nor I organise holidays, so last year I spent most of December lazing around at home (writing blog posts and playing games, it seemed). Anyway, Scrabblette and I had a vague plan this year to go to OMGESSEN! but I eventually figured out I'd spent too many days going to game cons around Australia and didn't have enough days leave available to make a trip to Germany worthwhile. Although I'd like to go to the Spiel Fair I'd LOVE to go touring around Germany and France, and it just wasn't going to work this time.

We considered some other possible holidays, such as HOLYCOWINDIA! (not enough days leave still) and travelling from Adelaide to Darwin via Alice Springs and Uluru on the Ghan (maybe not good value for money, and aimed at couples, not couples with a kid). In the end though, we settled on a trip to Cairns on the tilt train. It's a 24 hour train trip, which IS a long time, but it's pretty good for Queensland Rail. A train that goes almost as fast as a car is considered pretty amazing technology around here.

Cairns is a nice place - it has beaches and rainforest and mountains and so on. However I've been there a few times and it's not so exciting for me. However Scrabblette hasn't been there and it's one of those places that people come to Australia to see, so we have to go there eventually. So we're leaving today, and getting back on the 29th, hence cramming a quite long holiday into a space it barely fits in.

Of course we have quite a few games packed. As my opponents will probably be just the kid and Scrabblette I had to choose games they would actually play with me, so we have Scrabblette's favourites and a couple the kid added. One day I'll find someone who likes Key Harvest and Lord of the Rings: the Confrontation, and I'll sneak off to somewhere secluded with them... even if they're a big fat sweaty ugly guy. But anyway, we have Alexandros and Attika and Buyword and Mystery Rummy: Rue Morgue and I snuck in the E&T Card Game just in case...

BTW, don't get any ideas about sneaking round and stealing my Mask series or anything from my house... Miss Jane will be caretaking for us, and my vicious guard dog will still be home. In all likelihood I will be blogging while on holidays, but I don't know whether it will be about holiday stuff or games played!

Negative Christmas Presents

Many followers of this blog, like me, live in a consumption-oriented society. Since we moved house last year I've stopped accumulating furniture but we're accumulating DVDs, CDs, books and games at an apparently increasing rate. When we moved in there was heaps of space in our house, but we've expanded to fill it.

My baby sister is experiencing the same problem, even though she is much younger than me and has years of accumulation to catch up on. In email about plans for Christmas she wrote:

"We certainly do not need any more stuff,( if you know any people without stuff they can have some of ours,)"

It occurred to me that a good family thing to do would be to help each other actually get rid of stuff. Maybe we could:
* help each other clean out the shed / bookshelf / liquor cabinet (yes, even my liquor cabinet is overfull).
* rent a skip
* bring a ute around and cart some stuff to a charity.

So the Christmas objective would be to end up with LESS stuff than before. That certainly works for me. Any ideas?

Where The Fuck Is Agricola?!

I preordered Agricola in December, and it still hasn't turned up. Frankly, I've got the shits with everyone involved in the process, and I certainly won't be preordering from Z-Man ever again. I've held my tongue about this for a long time but it hasn't helped. This has been an absolute cock-up. I also have no interest in dealing with Lookout Games in the future after Hanno's hysterical outburst on BGG.

It'll probably be here on Monday, now that I've blown my stack.

The Bitches Love ASL

I'm a big fan of solitaire gaming (because the quality of opponent is higher :-) so I've been faintly thinking for a long time about some more serious solitaire war-gaming. Anything by Richard Berg just seems to be appallingly complex, but my Facebook friend MerricB has good things to say about ASL SK1, so I've been thinking about trying that. Coincidentally a local gamer offered to sell me his, so I bought it and tried to play it today on our Ekka holiday (google it).

I think my dog figured out if she sat next to the board then she'd get to cuddle with me. It didn't work. All my hands were in use holding the rule book and scratching my head.

For the non-gamers in my audience, ASL is Advanced Squad Leader - a World War II squad level game. Think of it as the game of Saving Private Ryan where you're Tom Hanks' commanding officer. In this particular scenario, the Americans have occupied a French village called Vierville and the Germans are attempting to reclaim it. This is my initial set-up with Sgt O'Brien controlling the crossroads.


The Germans attack from the top and the bottom (east and west) and the American reinforcements arrive from the right (north). As there was good cover for the Germans on the left hand side of the board, and not much on the right, the Germans chose to attack from the southeast and southwest. O'Brien and his men held off the German commanding officer, forcing him to retreat into a building, but the half squad at the other end of the road was quickly eliminated.

Eventually the Germans realised they'd made an enormous strategic error by not occupying the building in hex R7 (the rightmost American unit). That unit controlled a vast area around it, and along with O'Brien they protected the entrance to the village for the American reinforcements. The Germans probably should have occupied the building even further to the north as well.

With the roads open to American reinforcements, the centre of Vierville was soon decorated with stars and stripes and apple pies and photos of Mae West, and the German forces suffered some heavy fire and were forced to retreat. They eventually sent O'Brien crying back to his mummy, but Highsmith arrived with more firepower and prevented any hope of German occupation of the centre of the village. O'Brien had won the war for the Americans!

Overall, this was a decent experience, but I did spend an awfully long time trying to figure out all of the rules which applied to each situation. I think I've made enough sense of movement and Defensive First Fire now, and will be able to play a lot more smoothly next time. Routing (i.e. broken forces retreating, potentially under fire) wasn't so bad, but I know that I missed the rule about units which fail morale checks being degraded. I remembered it too late and decided not to apply it. I'll have to read the rule book again and play again to see how it works.

It seems to me that the game is not so much about killing, but about controlling area. It was very often the case that forces crumbled under fire without taking casualties, and became ineffective without being dead. In a real world scenario, this might relate to everybody hiding behind buildings and being unable to progress or reunite; or getting lost in some trees. In Saving Private Ryan a sniper effectively stalls the progress of the squad as they struggle to find a safe way past him. There's much more of that sort of disablement, and not so much death. If a squad can establish a position overlooking a road they can lay down so much firepower on the road that anyone who tries to use it will break and so cannot progress down the road. There's enormous power in controlling the paths to the objective.

Next time, the Germans will know that.

The Games Shelves Are Chocka-Block

My dad called yesterday to find out if I was still playing with myself... I guess he wants to see the old family traditions preserved. So I guess I'd better write something. Actually July was the month in which I recorded the most hours spent playing games ever - 13.5% of the time in the month was spent gaming. Between that and Scrabblette getting home after 3 weeks there wasn't much time for blogging.

Anyway, I was looking at some photos of my game shelves from when we moved in here almost a year ago, and they look sparse compared to now. It seems these days games are coming to get me - I no longer need to hunt them down. I've been trying to behave myself, but they keep getting in. Here's my game shelves and why they're like that.

Shelf 1 - Kids' Games and Party Games


The red boxes in the bottom left contain Big-Ass Trias and my home-made copy of Mambo. The plastic rack in bottom right is the Digimon CCG. The egg cartons are Eiertanz. The big plastic rack up the top id the Harry Potter CCG. Various odd games are stuffed in all of the corners. The base is a drawer containing Heroscape. I want to make this the kids games, party games and Ameritrash shelf, but I need to clear some space.

Shelf 2 - Abstracts and Word Games

This is the set of shelves that attracts Scrabblette most. The drawer at the bottom contains Command and Colors stuff - Memoir, Ancients, and Battlelore. The small drawers contain card games, score sheets, non-slip mats, odd dice, and one whole drawer of non-English rules. The games in the bottom left below Hive are Santorini and Twixt.

Shelf 3 - Euros and Ameritrash


This rack is the problem child. It's where games I totally must have are destined. The bottom shelf is Days of Wonder and FFG. Stacked on the top you can see the Mask trilogy (all 4 of them) and various Ticket to Rides and Friedemann Friese stuff. Lots of yummy Euros in the middle. The right-side racks include some Lego cars for playing with on the city streets mat we have, and bowls for putting counters into. The white sack is Polarity and the blue sack is Bagh Chal pieces. The drawer below the shelves contains most of my trade pile, and some older games such as Careers which I don't want to throw out but don't want to display either.

I think my next collection management project should be moving the Ameritrash to Shelf 1. Shelf 3 needs more space.