Hmm. I grabbed that from the GMT page for the game, but looking more closely, they’re listed as “Playtest counters,” from late-2017. So the final version is probably/maybe different?
Yeah I hope they change that. Imma write to Carl.
No word yet on my absolute war shipment. I hope it’s soon.
I had gotten my physical copy of The Fall of the Third Reich and I just scanned a few of the tables to have as reference during the SDHIST event. I have the Vassal module downloaded as well but the module does not include a few of those charts. IP protection, which I understand, but I like to have a digital reference so I can switch tabs over to it and don’t have to clutter up a small computer desk with the physical tables.
My copy of Hexasims Ligny arrived yesterday. There’s a plan for February to put it together with Quatre Bras and do the full “what if” scenario combining the two games. I’m really looking forward to that!
YOU MUST PROVIDE A FULL REPORT WITH PICS!
Sorry, it’s just the law.
I’m sure that will be possible!
The convention in the Lake District has it’s own guild etc. so piccies from the one just finished are here:
I played Quatre Bras from Hexasim and learnt how to play A Distant Plain…
I really want to start with some wargame boardgaming (or boardgame wargaming). But where should I actually start as a total noob? I love history overall, so not only WW2. But there are so many games in this area, that I never tried out anything.
It’s a very broad field, as you say.
Personally I’d suggest starting on the simpler side, since some of the rulebooks can be daunting. Also think about who you are going to play against and how, if there’s even somebody there (many of us play a lot of solitaire).
But also I think why you want to get into these is very important. By your post it seems exploring (military) history is a big part of it? What are you most interested in? Think period, but also scale. Man to man fighting or whole wars? Does logistics feel something you’d like to meddle with…?
There are also a lot of wargame-adjacent stuff that is not purely military but scratch similar itches (games that explore historical events in either a somewhat conceptual or simulationist way -they are interested in exploring the understanding of the historical period in question, not just in providing a game-).
Logistics sounds very interesting, you gotta feed and equip your army. And playing mostly solitaire.I looked at something like No Retreat! But it was out of print when I last looked … I have Twilight Struggle, though. I think I want to move away from carddriven games. I love hexes!
Gonna have to jump into Gunner Heat PC soon
I wonder about one of the more modestly sized SCS games from Multi-Man? I just got my first one of those so can’t speak to it from personal experience, but I have heard them recommended as an introduction to hex-and-counters wargaming. Not too much chrome, a modest ruleset that covers a lot of games, and lots of conflicts to choose from.
Having just finished a learning game of No Retreat: The Russian Front, I’d be inclined to steer you away from that series as a beginning. Although it’s an elegant, low-stacking, low-counter game, it strikes me as having a lot of depth and novelty around its mechanics. Also, the card deck influences everything.
And what others said about starting simple is solid advice. Some core concepts surrounding movement, zones of control, combat, supply, etc., can take some time to get comfortable with. More complex games tend to assume people are comfortable with those, so the complexity adds layers to those mechanics.
SCS is a good choice for beginners. It doesn’t have much logistics, though. It’s also very situation-dependent: some SCS games are excellent, and some are not, due mostly to particularities of situation.
One SCS I’d highly recommend is Autumn for Barbarossa, which does that campaign well and which was originally a magazine game but has just been released as a deluxe boxed version.
That was one of the specific two that was recommended to me as well. The other was Rostov '41.
I ended up not getting either of those two, and instead getting Day of Days and Panzer Battles because they were on sale super cheap.
I remember that I checked out the BGG page for the Field Commander series. What do you think about that? Too complex? OK? Not good? It is solitaire …
Mmm… not … so … good.
I’m not familiar with that series, sorry. A 7.0 on BGG is … okay, but the complexity rating looks pretty right. It looks like area movement and not hexes though? If you are okay with area movement, that new Absolute War, which is shipping now, is being promoted as very newby friendly. A few of us are waiting arrival, so I can’t vouch for it, but it’s by Carl Paradis, the same guy who has done the No Retreat series, so I’m hopeful it’ll live up to my expectations for it.
If you’re looking for something with area movement, the Undaunted series gets strong reviews, and is very competitively priced ($30 or so on Amazon with Prime shipping). That designer, David Thompson, makes a number of games that might interest you, like Soldiers in Postmen’s Uniforms. That gets much higher BGG ratings. Soldiers is fully single-player, too, and there are a couple of other games in the series (Pavlov’s House, Castle Itter).
If you want to go a bit outside of the traditional WW2 hex-and-counters series, I really like the Men of Iron series. Super playable once you get your head around the initiative rules. It doesn’t have logistics at all, though and combat is by individual battle. The Tri-Pack has three games from the series in one massive box for the price of one game. No stacking, essentially, and it plays fast. Fiddly bits are minimal (some of the shock/charge rules), but I don’t find them a hindrance. It’s not dedicated solo, but it plays solitaire very well.
Just remember, the BEST 2-PLAYER WARGAME IS KIM KANGER’S DIEN BIEN PHU THE FINAL GAMBLE KTHXBYE
Best solitaire-only wargame is Barbarossa Campaign by Gary Graber and Carl Paradis and Alan Emrich.
I was looking at Barbarossa Campaign a couple of months ago, and now remember AGAIN, that VictoryPointGames sold part of their IPs (or most of it), and their website only has 4 games listed. And now I am sad AGAIN, that the company is basically dead. Same with their games. So, somebody buys most of a companies IPs and then buries them never to be seen again… (my information on this is very incomplete, I liked to browse VPG website a few years ago, but all is gone, ugh).
Seriously, what are you complaining about? It’s readily available on EBay for the paltry sum of $270. ;)
No, the company that bought VPG, Tabletop Tycoon, offered the IP (of the games they weren’t selling) back to the designers for free. All you had to do was send them a letter (as the designer) saying, I understand you are no longer publishing [game]. I am asserting my rights as the designer to the IP. And they would confirm to you that, yes, it was now yours.
Barbarossa Campaign was out of print even before VPG died, though. I started working with Alan Emrich and the game’s designer, Gary Graber, to reprint it (since the particulars of boardgame publishing are outside my expertise—I was just going to provide funding) but Alan had to drop out due to other commitments. My understanding is that Jon Compton at Canvas Temple Publishing was planning to do a Kickstarter for this, but the timing is uncertain, and based on an email he send to his Kickstarter backers for the last project (Stalingrad Solitaire), he is having some health issues as well. I’ll probably reach out to him again to see if there is anything I can do to facilitate this.