A Day of Terrible Carnage, Saturday, 8 Dec 2007
Lest it appear I have completely been completely transformed into an X-Box zombie I thought it prudent to post a brief session report of my Saturday gaming activities vs. Steve.We started out with our old favorite warhorse, War of the Ring. Steve is now officially a master of the game. Despite my best, albeit a tad bit rusty, attempts to secure victory for the evil side, Steve totally crushed me. Score one ring dunk for the little people.
We next played the new Valley Games reprint of Hannibal: Rome vs. Carthage. Neither of us had played before, so going through the rules (which I had read) took longer than either of us wanted. In addition, as is common with card-driven wargames, neither of us was clear on which overall strategy to pursue, since there were so many options. Hannibal (Steve) came over the Alps and rampaged pretty successfully throughout Italy. I made an aborted attempt to get into Spain, but lost my initial key battle there, sending me scurrying back to France. Things were starting to look desperate for the Romans, so I loaded up my best pre-Scipio general and sent him out to lure the H-man to battle. Somehow I managed to barely beat Hannibal, killing most of his army and sending him to hustling back to Northern Italy. I was so far behind still that I still lost on auto-victory at the end of the turn, but it was good fun.
My overall impression of the Hannibal reprint is good, but the map does make picking out the province divisions exceedingly difficult. This tends to make end of turn scoring take too long as you're guessing who controls what. Still, despite this and some printing errors sprinkled throughout, its 90% good. I hope to play again, trading sides perhaps.
Lastly, Steve and I fought the battle of Agincourt on his miniatures table using his fantastic figures and some good, simple, yet fun rules. Steve guided me through the very bloody game, which featured Henry V getting mowed down, but the English prevailing overall. The spectacle of a miniatures game in full swing is amazing to behold, and Steve did a great job of teaching me and leading us through the game.
Labels: session report
posted by Ben @ 6:19 AM
5 comments
5 Comments:
War of the Ring: always pleasingly different and I got to try all the new things Jon showed me. I think the biggest thing that helped me was Ben simply didn't hit enough hunt rolls early, so I skated along pretty far. But the 5 eyes in the damage box while in Mordor shook my confidence.
Hannibal: like WotR, this looks to be a great game that will never play out the same. This was a good learning sluggo that gave us both some ideas about how to approach our next session.
Ancient-Medieval Wargaming: this was only my second try at these rules, and I think there is definitely potential for a lot of fun refighting some of history's more compelling battles. The web group associated with the rules has been very active, so hopefully I'll continue to pick up ways to get the most out of them.
Thanks for coming over, Ben. The first rule of gaming SHOULD be to make sure your opponent has a good time. Ben is always a tough opponent and definitely plays hard but never violates this rule.
Steve, if you were taking after my fellowship play style you should have pushed at least 3 times with 5 eyes in the box.
Jon, someday, even if far in the future, you will pay for such crimes.
Great Report!
Sounds like a great day of wargaming. I have yet to see a miniatures game in full glory.
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