Tuesday 29 January 2013

DreadBall

Not taken part in any 'fantasy' sport boardgames since 1st edition Bloodbowl. Since it's the week before the Super Bowl, which seems to based in a fantasy world all of it's own, I decided to give it a try at the club.

I watched on for the first game, looking at the Crib Sheet and trying to work out what was going on.

I then took part in a tryout against Tristan. Being late in the night it was probably never going to get finished.

The games got a lot in common with Bloodbowl, in that they are both games where the competitors are trying to violently eliminate the opposition from the game.

Weather violent sports games will be en-vogue in the future could depend upon how the 'concussion scandal' plays out in the US and whether it spreads to over here to other contact sports like the two Rugby's.

Tuesday 8 January 2013

Great Hex War


The homebrew hex based micro-scale rules, that are currently being bashed around by the historical gamers at the club, now take their turn at representing World War One.

The British Expeditionary force takes on the Germans in some Early War action. Each unit represented an Infantry Battalion or equivalent, with around 16 units in a division\force including cavalry and artillery. The sides consisted of 2 forces each.

The Germans edged the battle through casualties inflicted, but on the field the position was fairly static as the forces got pushed back and forth between defensive positions, with alternating periods of offence and defense.

I'm not sure that the decision to switch certain units, infantry in particular, to a 6 to hit, rather than the formally universal 5+ from the WW2 games, was a good idea. It makes things rather labourious to try damage the enemy sufficiently so that the free 'regroup' replacement per turn does not automatically bring them back to full strength. The fact that the 'regrouped' unit can be placed immediately in the front line and then moved freely makes the casulty taken redundant.

The lack of casualties also make difficult to change the tactical situation on the field, and apply localised pressure on positions. This might be appropriate for the static mid-war actions but not really for the earlier period.


When doing photographs of Great War based games I tend to tweak them to a Sepia tone to give them a faux period feel; Here is a link to someone who's achieving a similar effect but by a radical different method. Great War Greyscale