Have you looked at GMT’s Unconditional Surrender ? I missed out on the physical version but I have been playing it a lot on boardgamearena.com. I would happily set up a game with anyone interested here. It is not the huge monster that WiF or AWaW is. Think of something along the lines of Advanced Third Reich.
-
Boardgamearena.com looks interesting. How does that compare to something like VASSAL, for war games at least?
-
I might need to rethink things. I was thinking that A World at War and World in Flames are about the same size as Advanced Third Reich. I take it they both are bigger?
-
Unconditional Surrender looks interesting. I’m not sure my life would work for a 2-player game on that scale very well at the moment. (And I’m hoping to break away from screens with this a bit.) For the solo project, I was thinking global-scale, but I’ve tagged US to look at is it moves through the P500 system. I could see something like 2-player US working better when our daughter goes off to college in the fall.
-
Our intelligence arm has identified a different region of the house to invade, perfectly suited for a 4x8 table. The Piano Room War may go the way of Operation Sea Lion.
I don’t play browser-based digital implementations of boardgames. But when I do, I play them on boardgamearena.com.
-Tom
That is indeed an amazing piece, partially because more than a little of it resonates pretty strongly.
I love that “review”.
This might be even better (war)games writing ;P
I don’t take advice on the Internet. But when I do, it’s from Quarter to Three.
Thanks!
I am working hard – and barely succeeding – at buying games from my youth I enjoyed, don’t have a copy of, want to get a copy, yet don’t really have anyone to play it with.
Today’s struggle: The old Avalon Hill game Submarine. To make matters worse, this one could actually hit the table, making the struggle harder.
I remember throwing away wargames after I “grew out of them” after my teenage years. I’m not sure how I could have saved them through college and a number of moves, but it kills me to remember this now.
I also threw out ~100 wargames many moons ago along with dozens of issues of Strategy and Tactics magazine. Kept a couple dozen of my favorite games and some copies of The General and Operations magazines (The Gamers), and still regret not finding a way to keep them all.
I sold my 400+ game collection to a hobby shop in Oregon I think, back in the early 90s when I was in grad school for the second time. Needed the money.
I have mine in three or four boxes downstairs. I’ve been pulling them out now and then and started to replay them. Quite a trip down nostalgia road. I remember where I played the games, who I played them against, etc.
At some point I’ll probably shuffle a lot of them off to Ebay. They’re fun to revisit, but I’m enjoying the mechanics and gameplay of more recent games.
Not to change subjects, but I’m curious what people do for war game tables. Any tips? I’m looking to get/make something and not spend tons on it.
I started looking for a 3x8 foldable table for larger games, but the only ones I’ve found so far are either too short (6’) or too narrow (30’’).
Then I thought I could make a foldable table, something like this, but without the rounded corners.
Back in the day a ping-pong table, the type that folded in the middle to make a bounce-back wall, was my go to. Fully laid out it was big enough and the right height for most monster games, and would support the weight of both the plexiglass over the map sheets and my leaning on the edge as I reached over to try to get that armored division somewhere near Smolensk.
For smaller spaces I have always used those long heavy-ish tables with the folding pairs of legs on the ends.
Ping pong table = brilliant. That’s probably a bit big for our space, but the size would be perfect for monster games.
Thanks!
For games were counter orientation is not an issue I do this (setup takes only 2 standard maps, so no big monsters).
Way cheaper than a table and easier to keep set up in an apartment.
They used to sell magnetic counter clips too and I used those in college to play games on maps taped to steel dorm room closet doors.
I am way out of my league here. :) mind blown
So many questions…
So the wooden counter holders have magnets on the back to hold them to the white board? Do you stand while you play then? The pieces don’t fall off, especially if there are larger stacks of units? Do you run out of space on the counter holders?
Counter sleds have a magnet glued to them (self adhesive magnets).
Those are 1/2” counters and pretty small hexagons, but it mostly fits. For 6/8” counters and hexagons, it’s way less crowed.
Counter sleds stack 4 counters fine. More you have to be careful. So you can run out of space. I guess a very high counter density game would need a more intense setup (there are some vendors in the US for stackable counter holders, but none I know of in the EU, and the point of this setup is to be cheap).
The trick to move the sleds is to put your finger on top of the counter stack as to hold the counters in place as you move the, to avoid accidental falling.
It mostly works, but obviously it’s very game dependent.
Just read on twitter and csw that Rick Barber passed away last week from a heart attack. Seemed like a nice guy online, and made some really nice looking maps.
WIF is a really hard game solitaire. There is a moderate amount of hidden stuff, but really the problem is figuring out when you are going to pass and hope the turn is an important strategy and not always obvious.
For our World in Flame games, we used my full size dining room table with extra extension so it was 4’x 10’. We also brought in two card tables for production charts, and the minor fronts like Africa. After the session was over we carried the maps mounted on plexiglass into another room, which I kept the door.closed. I also played WIF with magnet counters, it was great for storage just hung it the guys garage. But I found it a little cumbersome to play with the counters.