Games Night: Tannhauser

Tannhauser, from Fantasy Flight Games, is a an alternative World War II (Weird War II) board game that pits an American elite team against a supernatural band of Nazis (including demonically possessed fighters and zombie troopers amongst others).

Jeff bought Tannhauser when it was first released in 2007. We played it once or twice and were generally very disappointed. Firstly the artwork, although generally gorgeous, was very dark and made the various routes through the board very difficult to work out and it became a real eye strain in less than perfect light! After we got over that there was the game play, which seemed less than fantastic. We played a straight scenario with each team out to destroy the other team, and I think that this may well have been the main problem!

Last night Jeff brought Tannhauser over again, so that we could give it one last try before he consigned it to Ebay! This time we used a scenario where each team was out to retrieve 2 (or possibly 3) objectives. You score victory points for taking out opposing forces and also for collecting the objectives. The game ends when one of the teams gets it’s second primary objective, and then the victory points are totalled up.

Using the scenario made a huge difference to the enjoyment of the game. Taking the primary focus away from killing enemy forces and on to protecting your main figures while they retrieve the objectives made the game far more fun and left us all feeling that we wanted to play it again, probably in the near future.

So, the evenings discussions slowly evolved from how much should it be listed on Ebay for, around to what new expansion packs have been released for the game and would picking up the new Russian troops be worthwhile. All in all a successful evenings gaming!

The game itself is not perfect and certainly needs some commitment from the player to get to grips with the system. Grenades for example seem very weak and difficult to use.

However, we decided to try it again in the near future and re all looking forward to playing it!

Games Night: Battle for the Galaxy Zylatron

Our weekly games night was called off last night due to more snow, so I am finally getting around to documenting our last session, which I had forgotten to post about!

I picked up what looked like an interesting board game from Ebay some time ago and this has been the first chance we have actually had to try it. Battle For The Galaxy: Zylatron, is basically a space combat and conquest game, it is quite abstract and the “galaxy” in question only consists of 5 planets and 4 moons!

Photo from Boardgamegeek.com

The basic game-play consists of taking control of the central planet and then attempting to capture your opponents planets. The object of the game, is to eliminate your opponents and totally dominate the galaxy.

I must admit we had several problems with this game. When opponents destroy your ships and troopers, the replacement cost seems excessively high compare to the ability to earn cash in the game. We found that due to the fairly easy destruction of resources and the high cost of replacement we spent far to much time simply trying to rebuild our fleets and over the evening we made virtually no progress towards the ultimate objective of dominating the galaxy.

The game itself seems to have real possibilities, and we have determined that with a reduction in the costs of replacement ships it could work very well. I think we will probably give it another go, with revised ship costs and see if it improves the overall game-play!

Overall the quality of the board and playing pieces is quite nice, especially considering that this is a fairly old game! The only real problem with this is the hex/triangular pattern on the board, which can be confusing and was not the easiest system to navigate by!

I will report back when we have had another chance to play and hopefully I will be able to say we have successfully improved the game!

Games Night: Monsterpocalypse

Last week and then again last night we played full games of Monsterpocalype, using the monsters to their full potential.

Wow what a difference it made. In my previous post I mentioned that we only used the basic combat rules, and not the special attacks. This was as a way of picking up the rules and certainly was enjoyable, if a little limited. The full rules make huge difference to the game play, making it far easier to wound monsters as well as upping the "fun factor" significantly!

Jeff, Mike and Del!

Mike and Del managed to finish their game with the Terrasaurs defeating the Martian Menace. Jeff and myself had a bit of slugging match between my G.U.A.R.D. and his Terrasaurs and had to call a draw when we finished up. He had reduced both forms of my monster by about half their points and I had killed his Alpha form!

It is interesting, now that we are getting the hang of the game, to see how the different factions interact, and indeed how the different units work with and against each other.

So far Mike has not bought into the game, but we think we have persuaded him now, and if the local shops can actually get more stock in (it is in terribly short supply in the UK) he has indicated that he will buy some!

Game Night: We won't be playing this one anytime soon!

I just spotted this on the Fail Blog:-

Wednesday: Games Night - Labyrinth

Mike and Del came over last night, this will be our last session before Christmas.

Del picked up a game called Labyrinth (by Ravensburger) in a local charity shop for the princely sum of £3.

We played it twice last night and both Mike and myself are now in the market for a copy! It appears that it is still available although it has been somewhat upgraded from the version Del got hold of!

Ok so why is it so great?

Basically it is a square board which is covered in smaller square tiles, each featuring various corridor sections that make up the labyrinth (corners, straights and T junctions).

Each player is dealt several cards with items on them and looks at the top one, then they have to try to get their counter onto the corridor section that features the item. Sounds simple...

But, each turn the active player has to push one row of tiles one square along (this frees up the first tile which is pushed off of the edge of the board for the next player to use on his turn). Consequently the labyrinth is constantly changing! That is pretty much the total extent of the rules!

Each game lasted around 30 minutes, although could have been quicker as we tend to chat a lot. For a game that looks like it is aimed squarely at kids, it is extremely good fun and addictive.

There is a slight variation, if you are playing the game with kids, they can look at all there cards, whereas adults can only look at their top card. This seems like a great way to level the game out and it will be interesting to see how it works in practice.

A very successful game, reminiscent of The Haunting House, although from our general consensus actually better!

(Note: Photos courtesy of Boardgamegeek.com)

Games Night

Wednesday games night was last night and we finally got around to trying out Monsterpocalype from Privateer Press.

Monsterpocalypse is a two player game and each player assumes the role of a city destroying monster (aka Godzilla or Cloverfield) and his smaller "support units". The idea is to fight the otherplayers monster and and is kind of a WWE meets Godzilla thing!

We only used the basic combat rules, without expanding in to all the powers that the monsters and units have so it was pretty much of a simple slugfest. However it gave us a good introduction into the basic rule mechanics and we are ready now to move on to a fully powered-up session next time.

The basic game mechanic of using dice pools to activate various effects is nicely enhanced with the system of moving used dice from the unit activation dice pool to the monster's dice pool and vice versa! This adds an element of resource management into the game which is a nice addition to a simple fighting monsters game!

Until we have had a chance to use the full game with all of the special abilities it is difficult for me to give a complete review here, but I can say that we were all fairly pleased with the basic game mechanics and are looking forward to the next session.

The figures and game components are also worth mentioning! The figures themselves are pre-painted plastic and generally are of a high standard. The different factions are clearly identifiable whether they be "not-Godzilla", "not-cthulhu", "not-ultraman" or any of the other factions. The are well sculpted and reasonably well painted.

The games is played out on a paper terrain map showing the streets and obstacles of a large city block. The paper is a little thin and also the folds cause it to not lie very flat, which is somewhat annoying, but not a serious problem. If this game becomes a regular with our group I will be tempted to stick the play-mat to a board to make it a little more resilient.

Along with the monster and unit figures, the games also comes with a selection of buildings that the monsters can use as cover, and more importantly can destroy! These models are nicely produced and look great on the table during play. Even if we do not continue with Monsterpocalypse for very long, I can certainly see the building being used for micro-armour/6mm wargames in future sessions.

Monsterpocalypse is certainly not a cheap game to get into, with starter sets running to £16 and boosters at £9.99, but if a group of you all buy into it and switch around the pieces with each other to create decent factions, each player does not need to spend a fortune to get up and running.

I will post a further review once we have had another chance to play, and once we have tried the full rules.

Toy Soldiers: The ethics of "War Toys"!

I have just read a very well written piece by the Dane of War over on his blog:-
Where have all the army men gone: Read it Here
It basically bemoans the modern lack of toy soldiers in Denmark (Dane of War's home) and the modern "PC" attitude towards war toys and games.

Personally, as a wargamer, and someone who (like Dane) grew up in the 70's playing with Airfix toy soldiers, I have spent a fair time thinking this subject through. Now, being a father of two boys, the oldest of which is 4 1/2 and starting to reach an age where toy soldiers may have some appeal, I have to decide where to go!
My wife and I have been extremely reluctant to allow the boys to have toy guns (my eldest son has a Buzz Lightyear ray gun, but that is as close as we will go). So how is that different to toy soldiers?
Also, being a Buddhist, I have had to think hard about the ethics of playing wargames myself.
I suppose my general conclusion is, that most wargamers do not promote war or aggression in any way, they generally know a lot more about the hardships and horrors of war than the average person would (although clearly not as much as anyone who has actually fought ). Also they tend to honour and respect those that have fought for their countries.
I tend to think that wargames are always going to have some controversy around them when it comes to moral issues. Even down to things like what kind of casualty markers are used on the wargames table. Certainly some are valid, and I suppose I am not totally convinced that my position is the right one. However, at the moment I am happy to promote wargames to my sons and have taken my eldest to several Wargames show (although he has not shown any particular interest in that direction yet).
I think the best thing is to admit that this subject needs continuous review and that I will always be looking at the subject and thinking it through. I tend to lean towards science fiction and fantasy games most of the time, which are clearly removed from reality and so I suppose I am avoiding the true horrors of war most of the time anyway.
A difficult subject that is never going to be truly resolved. Dane of War makes some good points, and it is well worth a read.