Millennium Game Day, No Car...

Yesterday was our monthly meet at Millennium, and our 8th anniversary of the club's founding -- something I started when I moved back to Rochester from the DC area. Bill Peeck and Steve Cuyler mostly run things now, and they got sub platters, pop (soda for the rest of y'all!), and a cake (believe Jack Morrell did this) to celebrate. Most people gave Bill 5-10 dollars for his efforts (and he paid Steve and Jack), though some slackers didn't contribute. Bill was too nice to demand payment for food, but I was ready to call several folks out who wolfed down "free" food (one woman had 2 sub sections, 2 pieces of cake, and a plateful of chips, yet didn't pay...), but Bill told me not to. Oh well, just geeks being losers...

Anyway, I played 2 games of Traders of Carthage, and 1 each of Alhambra, Pacific Typhoon, and Iwo Jima. We had intended to play Kutuzov, but only Jeff Burdett knew the rules, so we decided to push this back until we all knew.

I had fun, and I especially like Iwo Jima's mechanics, though I'm thinking the Japanese almost can't win. I posted the following on CSW, and will be interested to see what the answers are:

Come on, this is a fun little game, and with all the clamor and whining about the handling of the Operations issue it was in, I'd suspect 100s of folks, at least, would have been playing by now. Well, you should be!

Anyway, played again yesterday. My Japanese held on well, and jumped off to a big lead (23-2 at one point), but then the inevitable "wearing down" began, and the final score after Turn 8 was Marines 46, Japanese 25.

I'm still trying to figure out how to get the Japanese to win...

Some observations on why it's so hard for them:

1. The cave/safe to land/beachhead reduction. While Adam's clarification that 1 hit (not 1 damage number) makes it easier for the Japanese to get rid of "safe to land" markers (for a couple turns, anyway), it also makes it easier for the U.S. player to go "cave hunting." Send a plane (or target an artillery) to each area you want to expose/destroy a cave, and odds say you'll get at least 1 hit on 4 dice, destroying a cave. In two turns, all caves in the area are collapsed -- bad news for the Japanese!

***My opponent and I discussed how a nice balancing factor (especially given the confusion I had with this in the initial rules) might be to let the Japanese remove beachheads/safe to lands with just 1 HIT will the U.S. would need to inflict 1 DAMAGE FACTOR to remove a cave***

Thoughts?

2. U.S. Tanks are almost impossible to stop. The only way is to get them with anti-tank defensive fire -- after that, they're pretty much invulnerable. The tanks really only need be concerned with the 4 airfield areas, so infantry can go in first and find out where the anti-tank units are. Once these are no longer a worry, the tanks can pretty much act without regard to their safety, as it takes a Herculean effort for the Japanese to inflict even one hit on 2 or 3 tanks stacked together.

3. U.S. bombardment is the game winner -- the infantry can take 30-35 step losses, if need be, in order to expose the areas the U.S. needs to bombard. Find an area with juicy targets, roll 20+ dice, and the Japanese no longer have a "happy area!" When artillery exposes itself to fire (as it needs to do vs. airfields/beachheads), boom, instant target!

4. The game is a grind, and there just don't seem to be enough Japanese steps to hang on for 9 turns, especially with the "easy" cave reduction. By turn 6 or 7, things get critical for the Japanese, and this gives the U.S.3 turns (at least) of 10 VPs for all 4 airfields.

I imagine the Japanese could win early, by rolling really well and crushing the initial invasion, but once things get going, I'll be damned if I know how to stop them. I think the rue change we talked about above might help, and I'll try it the next time I get to play. This is a real "neat" little game, and I just want to see folks playing and enjoying it, as well as seeing the Japanese winning.

Thoughts?

Right now, I'd bid 10-15 VPs for the Marines -- way too much for balance in a game where 40 VPs wins. Hope to get some "official" help...

Wish me luck getting my vehicle tomorrow (Monday). If I can't, it'll be there all week, as Deanna has school training Tuesday-Thursday, so she can't take me. Any of you want to drive me down? ;-)

WBC, Day 5...

First off, after coffee (of course!) was the semi-finals of Santa Fe Rails. I was seated at a table with Kevin W. from Buffalo, Laurel Stokes (the wife of the "no table talk" guy), and Andy Lewis. A tough bunch, it would seem! Kevin, and I jumped out as the early leaders, but neither of us could stop the game early, as Andy Lewis kept buying branch lines. By drawing a lot of "7" cards, Laurel pulled up with the leaders. We laid a lot of track, and most cities were connected -- something that doesn't often happen at a table with 4 experienced SFR players. I drew both Bismarcks, and there were already 2 tracks heading there, with another track coming back east from Spokane. I didn't play "white" quickly enough, and the track never made it, "cheating" me out of 10 points. I also should have convinced Laurel to take the blue track through Salt Lake to Las Vegas, instead of Sacramento -- she and I owned Las Vegas, and there was NO way I was letting it go to Sacramento, which she and Andy owned. So, my 2 errors cost me 16 points in the end. As it was, after a recount, Kevin had 155, Laurel had 152, I had 144, and Andy had 120. I'm glad Kevin won (if I couldn't!), and Kevin went on to win the finals -- meaning Western New York guys have won this tourney 3 out of the 6 years it's been going!

I walked around for a while and checked out the open gaming tent that had been set up. 3 guys were learning Traders of Carthage, including Steve (?), one of Ron Wuerth's friends, and a fun guy to game with. Not to mention Steve has the rules to about 1,000 games in his head! I was invited to join them, so I did. The game was fun, as you picked up 4 different commodities and tried to deliver them to Carthage, avoiding pirates. Actually, the game play for this card-game was pretty deep. It took me a few turns to figure out what best to do, and in the end I finished 2nd with the scores at 14-13-10-8.

Off to the last Pacific Typhoon heat -- if I don't win this one, no advancing for me, a former champion, 3 years in a row. Well, guess what? 39 points won the game. I had 11. Grrr... Maybe I have to practice more. Wait, I practice all the time...

Hanging my head in shame, I ambled off to the Alhambra semi-finals. I felt like I had a decent shot here to advance, since, for some reason, Alhambra has always been a game I've done well in, luck factor and all. The semis were a 5-player affair, and Nate Hoam of the Cabbies jumped out to an early (~4 or 5 point) lead. After the 2nd scoring round, it was obvious that it was a 2-man game between Nate and me. A white tower for 13 came up, and I had the exact amount -- that would put me into the tower lead and, most likely, win the game for me. Nate was sitting to my right, and he bought it out from under me, preventing my lead in towers! Excellent move on his part, as this proved to be the swing that gave Nate the win, 92-84. An excellent game that went right down to the wire. Oh yeah, another 2nd...

Of course, after that disappointment, I went back out to the open gaming tent and ran into a bunch of Western NY guys. We decided to play, wait for it, Alhambra! LOL! I should have said no, but I wanted to do something. I ended up in, guess what place? 2nd, that's right. The scores were: Grant-92, Rob-86, Bob Titran-72, Bill O'Neal-63, Dave W.-51, Bill Place-46. Another Alhambra game, another 2nd to a guy that scored 92...

I stayed out in the tent and started reading the rules to Iwo Jima: Rage Against the Marines, the game in the special issue of Operations Magazine. Several people came by to chat about it, and Jim Winslow asked if I'd like to try a game. We went for it, muddling our way through the rules, with me taking the Japanese and Jim taking the Marines. By the time the game ended, we had the rules down, and we both saw the mistakes we had made. Jim won (2nd for me again!), and I really want to try this one again, soon.

As I was packing up the game, Bob Wicks and a friend came by asking if I'd like to play Race for the Galaxy. As I love this game, but couldn't enter any heats (conflicts), I readily agreed. They grabbed a fourth, and we were off. Now, I'm not one to whine about my luck, but this was ridiculous -- I didn't see a resource producing planet for the first FIVE hands, sticking me squarely behind the 8-ball. So, I played a development heavy game, and though I finished 4th, my 23 points was only 6 behind the winner's 29. At least it wasn't another 2nd, LOL!

11:00 PM saw me headed back to Ballroom B for Liar's Dice. I sat at a table with Forrest Speck and his son John. 6 of us "lied" it out, and soon enough the only 3 left were Forrest, John, and me. Soon I got booted, and Forrest had a 3 dice to 1 advantage over his son -- but John played great, and ended up winning. A fun game that plays better when the alcohol levels rise. OK, maybe I should be happy with 2nds, as I seem to be slipping...

Late at night. Much beer consumed. Another "friendly" game of Pacific Typhoon begins... 6 of us fight it out. The final scores are 35-25-23-18-15-11. I had 18. Steve Cuyler wins, but whines through the whole game, something negatively commented on by the other players. Steve is an excellent player, but the constant complaining about his cards has gotten real old. Stopped being fun about 1/2 way through, though, mercifully, the game was reasonably quick -- I just wanted to head to bed. It was too late for this...

WBC, Day 3...

Slept in Wednesday morning, as planned. Recovered a bit from the previous two nights! I must admit, I felt guilty that I wasn't playing Wilderness War, but man, I needed a break from day-long wargames this year.

***Boardgame Geek is down for maintenance now, so no links to games, sorry***

I get up, have coffee, and wander around the Host, shooting the shit with many different folks. As 1:00 approaches, I head off to the Galaxy room, to play in the first heat. Oh man, but this was an unlucky game for me. My secret base died early, and the other 2 players refused to attack the clear leader (not me, LOL!), so the best I could do was eke out a distant second. The scores were 14-6-3-1. Multi-player games can often go against you if inexperienced players make plays that help others -- such as in my Santa Fe Rails game yesterday. But it was OK, there were 3 more heats coming, and the GM, Mark Mitchell, said 1 or 2 seconds might be enough to advance, anyway. Oh yeah, did I mention that Galaxy was my team game this year? I was on "Team Viagra," ranked #13...


I spend some more time just hanging out and catching up with old acquaintances. Later in the afternoon I decide to take a shot at playing Ingenious, a game Pete Stein runs. I like the game, but mainly have played the 2-player game with my wife, while the tourney utilizes the 4-player version. Well, I show up and actually win my board, 13-10-9-8. I'm told by Pete that I'm either in the semis, or, at worst, will have to "dice off" with folks in the same boat as I, depending on how many show up for it on Sunday morning. That sounded fine to me, as I hadn't even planned on playing Ingenious, it just fit nicely into my schedule.

After dinner I ran into Bill O'Neal, and he was between games, so we played a game of Manouevre -- my Austrians vs. his Spanish. It was a pretty good game, but Bill opened things up at the end and ended up winning 5-3. I thought I had a good chance mid-game, but then Bill played a stout defense on his right wing and that led to my army eventually breaking. Again, another fun (and quick!) game.

Next, I headed to another Pacific Typhoon (I decided to play PT over Atlantic Storm each time...) heat, and this game was most excellent! Back and forth all game, and in the end it end it came down to 3 players, including me, with a chance to win. The last battle was won by a player out of the running, and then we counted points. All 3 leaders had 28 points -- a 3-way tie! The tiebreaker is "battle points," and Gary (?) had 22, while I had 20 and Joe Burch had 15. So Gary won, and I had to walk away from another "close but no cigar" game. D'oh!!!

As the evening wore on, I checked the schedule and saw that an Alhambra heat was about to start. I like Alhambra, but there's an awful lot of luck in 4 or 5 player games, so I debated on playing. What the Hell, I went for it, as nothing else was waiting for me. I had a great wall built up, and was ahead in 2 buildings. The final scores were 127-104-89-82 with the 127 belonging to me. This assured me of getting into the semis, so I was glad I stopped in and played.

The 11:00 PM game was one I had to go to -- the Can't Stop tourney. I won this last year, so it would have been poor form to stay away. And besides, I like rolling dice! Well, what can one say about this game? You roll dice and you gamble your position. In Round 1, I gambled well, and won a 4-player game. In Round 2, we played 3-player, and there was a young guy at my board. His buddies were drunk and loud, and while it was funny for a couple minutes, it quickly got annoying. I wanted to win, or have the woman at my table win, just to shut them up. So I took foolish chances (trying to get lucky) to quicken the game. I didn't win, but the woman did. And one of the loudmouths spilled beer all over himself. So it was a Pyhrric victory, eh?

After Can't Stop, it was time for bed. Or was it? Not when one stops by the bar and starts drinking -- this leads to a 1:00 AM game of Pacific Typhoon. It was me, Bill Peeck, Bob Titran, Frank Mestrve, Tom Dunning, and Bill Place. Tom and I tied for 2nd with 25 points. Frank won with 31. Now it was definitely time to hit the sack...

WBC, Day 2...

Woke up early Tuesday morning and had my coffee -- needed to be caffeined up for the Manoeuvre tourney that started at 9:00 AM. This was a tournament with "pods," where you played the other 3 people, and best records advanced to an 8-person quarterfinal. High roll could pick the side he wanted to play, with the caveat that you have to play every nation (assuming you go the distance) and can play no nation more than twice. In my pod, the first game saw me as the British vs. Ken (?)'s French. I won a territorial victory, garnering 25 points. 2nd game was my French vs. Ed (?)'s Prussians. I won a pretty decisive attrition victory for 27 points. The last game saw my French playing Brad's Austrians -- Brad was the guy I played on Monday night. He put up a good fight, but the French overwhelmed them eventually, giving me another 27 point victory. I easily advanced to the quarters as the 2nd seed.

Being the 2nd seed got me in a game with John Miklos, Mark Miklos' son. John is an excellent player, and I had already "shot my wad" with the French and the British. John selected the French, and I wavered between the Prussians, Spaniards, and Russians. I settled on Prussia, and we had a good game. For a while. Then John broke my right wing, and ended up routing me for a 5-1 victory. Ouch! John did go on to make the finals, though he lost his last match. I learned a few tricks, some of which I hope to employ next year!

After hanging out for a bit, I entered the first of 4 Atlantic Storm/Pacific Typhoon heats. We could choose to play either game, and I went for PT. It was a pretty good game, and I had some chance to win, but was stynied at each turn. As the game ended, the winner had 38 points, while I was 2nd at 30. The other scores were 29, 19, and 12. Damn, but I haven't won a heat here in a couple years, gotta get going!

Onto Santa Fe Rails, a monthly favorite at out Rochester meets. We played a 4-player game, and there were a couple of newbies to my left. They fed an awful lot of point opportunities to Steve Scott, the eventual winner, and he picked up 84 cash during the game -- which is huge. Hell, 50 cash is huge, I'd never seen a number as high as 84 before... So, try as I might, I could never make up that deficit (wish the newbies had been to my right...), and I finished in 2nd. Final scores were: 119-114-101-65. Seeing how the winner was spoon feed the victory, I feel like I played an excellent game, even though I didn't win. Oh well...

Now, I began thinking about my day and a half in Lancaster. I had started off with 7 straight victories, but then was saddled with 3 losses in a row. I needed to turn things around, so I went off to have a few beers, and just relax for a bit.

Later on that evening, I decided to play Ivanhoe, since a bunch of Western NY guys were playing. We were all happily buzzed, so why not? Now, this is not one of my favorite games -- it's OK, but it often takes too long for what it is. Luckily, my game finished quickly, and I won. Back on track...

Mike and Bob were in the "monster game room" playing Third World War with Jeff and Chris from Jersey, so I went and checked on their game for a while. After Mike's brake "incident," he finally made it to Lancaster and they all looked like they were having fun.

Ended the night hanging out with the boys at the bar, into the wee hours of the morning. Figured since I was skipping Wilderness War this year, I could sleep in on Wednesday, which I did.

A real fun start to the con, even if I blew it with Manoeuvre...

UB and sushi...

Made it out to UB for the Buffalo Area Consim Simulation Gamers (BACSIM) meet. Yes, the head of the group, Grant LaDue, knows that's a mouthful! Drove out in 90F degree weather, and my a/c stopped working (I drive a 12 year old RAV4, and it's been "touch and go" with the a/c for a few years now. Luckily, with all the windows open, there was enough of a breeze to keep me alive. Started off with a 6-player Pacific Typhoon, the card game of Pacific Battles. I believe I finished in last place. It was just one of those games... For the last 6 or 7 hands I had Admiral Halsey, which would have let me play two American ship cards instead of just one. In all those hands, I had Japanese cards exclusively, save for one hand where I had a wimpy American sub. Just the way the game goes, sometimes.

After that, I played two games of Combat Commander with Bob Titran. We played Scenario 23 from the Mediterranean set, which is an Italian vs. British fight in the Western Desert. No terrain, save for a road running diagonally down the middle of the board. Both sides start in trenches, and a British leader with a heavy machine gun has infiltrated "no man's land" during the night to set up a sniper's nest behind an abandoned truck. 6 squads for the Italians, 3 for the British, a medium mortar for the Italians, a light for the British, and both sides have 2 light machine guns. The British also have some off-board artillery, but special scenario rules make it difficult to use (as fire was sporadic, at best).

The first go round saw me as the Brits. Bob quickly pounded my sniper with mortar and machine gun fire, and he ended up running back to his friendly trench line, under a cover of smoke, heavy machine gun in tow. There after, the game became a medium/long range slug fest, and the heavy machine gun did quick work of any Italians leaving the trenches. A British squad was able to grab a couple objectives on the road, under a smoke screen, and this provided the margin for victory.

We then went out to lunch, it being mid-afternoon. We were going to just grab a burger at Red Robin, but we drove past a new Japanese place called Kyoto Grill, so we stopped there, instead. Bob had a shrimp/chicken hibachi dish, while I had a bento (sp?) box that had a beef/scallion dish, dumplings, salad, and a California Roll. We also had a few draft beers -- Killian's for me, Blue Moon for Bob. After the meal, as I came out of the bathroom, Bob had already picked up the check -- and it weren't a tiny one. Next time he's in Rochester I've gotta take him to a nice place...

After returning to UB, we switched sides, and the scenario played out very differently! I was able to kill his sniper right away, and then deny the Brits from using artillery for the rest of the scenario. Over time, the Italian squads moved out under smoke cover, capturing objectives, and even infiltrating the British trench line. By the time it was over, the Italians were in control of the board. It's a great game, and interesting how each scenario can play so differently each game -- goes to the strength of the system, and its inherent "chaos," something I both like and find quite realistic. In a tactical game, I don't want perfect control over my troops. I realize that's anathema to some, though it truly is much more realistic than knowing exactly what everyone can do every turn...

But we have games for 'em all, we do!

After the 2nd Combat Commander game, Bob hit the road, and I watched the 2 train games in progress. Nels Thompson and I talked about playing another game, but I was having trouble staying awake by then (beer, early morning, and old age, I guess!), so I decided to hit the road back to town. Nels lives in Buffalo and works in Rochester, so we'll have to get together one of these evenings, as it's been too long.

And, of course, it's always a pleasure to come home to my waggy-tailed friend who missed me!