Happiness is finding a game that’s been out of print:
No way! Where did you get that??? I trust you’ll be back to tell us about it after you’ve played?
-Tom
Sure. After all it was you who made me curious about Onirim. And you were right - after that you want to play everything Torbey designed.
The BGG market had an offer from Lithuania for 30€. So I bought it at once. There are still four offers for 40-60$. But this was the only one that was affordable for a European.
I’ll come back to report.
Actually, the main reason I haven’t tried to track down a copy is I’m hopeful an Urbion re-issue will be Torbey’s next Z-man release. Also, I’m still sulking that there don’t seem to be any plans to correct the misprinted tokens in Nautilion. :(
-Tom
I know this is late, but I enjoyed this comment immensely
Can it be that Torbey is a bit unlucky with Z-Man Games? I bought Nautilion when it was mentioned in this thread. A week or two later it was sold out. It’s become more and more difficult to get any of his games in Europe for a reasonable price. They always seem to be printed in rather small numbers of copies. Therefore I wouldn’t hold my breath regarding a re-issue of Urbion.
I’m still hopeful, but there is some building belief that the re-issue isn’t going to happen because Asmodee isn’t as interested as Z-Man was:
Taken with a heavy grain of salt, because nothing but second/third-hand info from conventions. I think it’s definitely fair to say that any re-issue of Urbion is going to be very delayed though. Asmodee’s acquisition of Z-Man has amplified Z-Man’s inability to keep popular stuff in stock. There are several formerly Z-Man games that I’ve been watching to pick up, Nautilion chief among them, but there’s no sign whatsoever that they’re going to arrive any time soon. I actually had Nautilion pre-ordered with CSI back in October/November, and eventually had to cancel it because it was holding up a Christmas order and it kept getting pushed back. To this day I still have not seen Nautilion back in stock yet.
I think it’s likely that Asmodee is having some issues transitioning production and distribution of Z-Man’s games, and who knows when they’re going to clear them up. It may also be possible that Asmodee has just decided to bury all but the most popular Z-Man games for the time being, which would be very disappointing.
I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my Oniverse games, but I think I’m ready to graduate to something meatier.
I’d like to try a solo wargame, but Jesus that’s a dense field. In looking at recommendations from this forum and BGG, there are a lot of things that interest me, but many of them are out of print. D-Day at Omaha Beach seems like a good place to start, but it won’t be reprinted until later this year, so I’m wondering if there’s a similar game that would be a good first game. I’m also eyeing Conflict of Heroes, Labyrinth, and Dan Verssen’s Leader games.
I’d also like to try a solo 4x game – Scythe seems to have a lukewarm-to-negative following here, but it’s readily available. Space Empires 4x is out of print but seems like it would be up my alley. (I did do a P500 order of Spacecorp by John Butterfield after reading through the rulebook, but who knows when that will materialize). Struggle for the Galactic Empire was also mentioned upthread, but it’s hard to tell if it scratches the same itch.
I’d also like to try one of the card games I’ve seen thrown around here – Legendary (Alien or Marvel-flavored), Pathfinder, or Lord of the Rings. Legendary seems straightforward, but I’m unsure about the scale of Pathfinder and LotR. Are they campaign-length? Do you play individual scenarios? Is there deckbuilding?
Just trying to figure out where my next gaming dollars should be spent. Probably overthinking it, but I definitely feel spoiled for choices.
I’m really liking Dawn of the Zeds, 3rd edition. Goes quickly once you get the feel for it, lots of repayability, and meaty enough.
I’d highly recommend PACG on the iPad instead, if that’s an option for you. You take your characters through a whole adventure path, upgrading each one’s deck and powers as you advance.
Pathfinder is campaign length, yes. There are light deckbuilding elements in that as you adventure you will find “boons” and add them to your character deck, then at the end of the scenario you have to prune back down to tour limit of each type of card. It’s not full on Magic-style build a deck before you play, though. LOTR is that but while I think the scenarios form an overall storyline I don’t think they are actually connected mechanically in a campaign sense.
If you go Pathfinder on the tabletop I would skip the first set (Rise of the Runelords) for the more balanced and robust design of later sets. The iPad version of the first set is real slick, though, and there isn’t a digital version of later ones yet.
Oh, and if you do go with PACG in either format, be sure to download the story book from BGG as it really fleshes it out a bit. It’s just a pdf with more before and after details of each scenario than the very skimpy official one.
I do recommend Dawn of the Zeds. It’s fun and plays fast enough.
For wargames, Enemy Action: Ardennes is really satisfying, but be ready to read a lot of rules. That’s a dense game.
Conflict of heroes is perhaps easier to grasp. But EA: A is so good I’m basically set for any other games in the series.
I also am awaiting the reprint of D-Day at Omaha Beach. Per some marketing people at Decision games that I recently had contact with, they indicated it was set for a June-ish release, and that it would have a mounted game board.
While I have not tried them, there are other games in the D-Day series—Tarawa and Pelilieu. i cannot vouch for any of the D-Day games, but they all seem to enjoy rather large ratings on BGG and good word of mouth.
I can, though, recommend the designer, John Butterfield. One of the Giants in the field of Wargamming, in my opinion. He was also the designer of Enemy Action: Ardennes that @Juan_Raigada mentioned (another game I haven’t yet played.
If you’re open to Wargames dealing with Air power, I cannot recommend strongly enough RAF: Battle of Britain 1940. Another Butterfield design. Since I put it on my table in late January, it hasn’t come off. It’s actually 3 games in one…Lion, which is the Solo game where you play the RAF vs the Germans…Eagle, where it’s the reverse, you play the Luftwaffe vs the RAF…and Lion vs Eagle, which is 2-player. Playing the complete BoB scenario can take upwards of 15 hours to complete, but it’s a wonderful 15 hours.
I would also recommend Zulus on the Ramparts and Ottoman Sunset. Both are State of Siege games in the same series as Dawn of the Zeds, but deal with. obviously, different themes. Zulus is about the battle at Rorke’s Drift in 1879, which is most widely known today as the battle depicted in the movie Zulu. Ottoman deals with the Ottoman Empire’s dealings in WW I. I personally prefer Zulus better, as I think there are more player decisions/actions to make, and therefore the player can have more impact on the outcome, but others here will tell you that Ottoman Sunset is much better.
I’ve just bought and set up Comancheria, and am partly through the tutorial. Got this based on @tomchick recommendation. Don’t really have a full opinion on it thus far, but so far, I like what I see. A bit of a different kind of Wargame.
Tony
For those waiting on the D-Day at Omaha Beach reprint, the 3rd edition is now available for pre-order at the Decision Games website.
The new edition is scheduled to ship in early June and includes a mounted game board.
Here a few thoughts about Urbion.I like it, as it’s easy to understand and to play. In the middle of your “board” you have four city cards. On each side of the cities you place dream cards. Dark ones on the left, light ones on the right. You gain a city card, if the values on the cards on both sides are equal (like 5+1 on one side and 4+2 on the other). Of course there are rules that make this project a bit more difficult and there are chaos cards to throw the whole thing off balance.
Here are the cards:
What makes this game more difficult for me is: In Onirim you only had to bear in mind that there are more red stars than green ones and that there are less moons altogether. Here you have different card values on each side (3s, 2s and 1s on the dark side and 4s, 2s and 1s on the light side) with special symbols each that only can be attached to certain cities. All in all a enjoyable experience but a bit less relaxing than Onirim. Still, a very good game in my opinion and I hope this post wasn’t way more than you wanted to know. ;-)
On another note: Did anyone play Fireteam Zero? I read very mixed opinions about it. Although I’m not that much into the plastic soldiers design.
I own Fireteam Zero (base game) and played the first mission. I stopped, only because I needed to clear up my table at the time and then it never made it back on. I do want to go back to it though. The game theme is a mix of Occult and World War 2 that I don’t feel sick of just yet. The base game offers 3 campaigns of 3 scenarios each. The general principal is to explore a map to flip special encounters. The encounter deck is composed of 3 distinct mission cards shuffled through it to progress the story alongside 9 random events that can be either good or bad. There’s a never-ending stream of monsters that spawn to hinder progress, though capped to the number the game makes available at the start. It is the number of these monsters that dictate the game scale with player number. Plenty of dice rolling involved is what I really remember.
I guess it reminds me, and plays a lot like Zombicide mixed with a little of PC game X-Com. A big part of the game is crowd control, the monsters spawning will always outnumber the players, and it comes down to a particular player character choosing the right moment to hopefully kill multiple monsters at the same time in order for the team to progress. If I recall, there’s a light deck building component between missions that serve as character development.
Show off! :)
That’s cool to see. I’ve never actually seen Urbion, but it sure does have that Elise Plessis look! Gameplay sounds more like Castellion than Onirim in that it’s about fitting pieces together. It also sounds puzzly in a way that would hurt my head, but I’m just telling myself that because it’s out of print.
-Tom
Been playing a few games solo while wating for the kid to get ready for some Mechs vs. Minions this weekend.
At the Gates of Loyang - I hate vegetables…have since 2nd grade. Little reason this game would sway my opinion on them. Scored a 13 the first two plays with them. A good player scores 17…great one 19-20. I hate vegetables even more now.
Warhammer Quest: Adventure Card Game - Got tired of playing LOTR:TCG as building decks just gets old after 3-4 times. Of course, I bought MANY of the expansions which made that process more unbearable. Playing Warhammer is kind of a breath of fresh air with the 8 action cards per hero. I spent more time with LOTR looking up rules from all the cards…this one pretty simple. Just wish there were more campaigns…some decent fan made ones but still. For $20, it was worth it.
Freedom, The Underground Railroad - Really enjoy this. Played twice so far solo. Money is the problem…never have enough to get the tokens needed in order to win the game. Need to move more people North East where the money cites are…good game with the need to balance moving, making money, sacrificing one for the good of many. Interesting and difficult game.
Going to try and learn all the bones in Too Many Bones next. Way too many bones but what the heck.
Played my first game of The Barbarossa Campaign.
Amazing system. Captured Moscow on winter 1941 through some very lucky combat draws, but I was unable to capture Stalingrad on '42 (got to the gates) and things went downwards from there.
It’s really clever how the Soviet “AI” is handled. A mix of mild AI, turn abstraction and pre-scripted (although randomized) economic development. the game switches pretty seamlessly from being on the offense as the Germans to having to defend desperately, but I felt mostly in control (just faced with a very hard problem to solve). The way Soviet counter-offensive work (easily creating pockets and isolating big chunks of your armies if you are not careful) is impressive.
Definitely medium-high weight, but lighter than most John Butterfield works and other solitaire wargames (much lighter than Enemy Action Ardennes). Basically it’s a medium-high weight solitaire boardgame and a medium light to light solitaire wargame. Highly recommended so far (let’s see how much longevity it has, but with several scenarios, I would say a lot).
I would not recommend getting it, though, since VPG are most likely releasing a redesign soon, with much higher production values.