GMTs Mr President just went gold, shipping in a few weeks after all these years.
I thought it would take me a long time to learn Skies over Britain. I looked at the Mr President manuals and seems a lot more involved. And you need a large table for the game. Luckily it’s warm in my garage this time of year and my 8 foot table is ready!
I ordered this on impulse a couple of days before it closed, it certainly looks intimidating. Let us know how it goes if you manage to get it to table!
I have FC Napoleon, it’s not a bad solo game at all. Nice tactical system on an excellent strategic overlay. Each campaign has it’s own strategic map and special rules but the tactical system is pretty much unchanged apart from the opposition counters, so once you have learned that getting the battles done is relatively straightforward. I didn’t find the campaigns a push over at all, they were often quite challenging.
I believe the Nimitz one isn’t very good (according to consensus anyway) but think I want to check out the Alexander one at some stage. It seems to have a speed = initiative combat system, where for example an enemy charioteer would go first, but if you weather that and your peltasts or whatever can land a hit on him, it knocks off some of that speed and puts him in the same zone as your heavy infantry next turn. :)
Got through the first turn of Napoleon yesterday and thought I’d highlight the interesting decision points.
Decision 1: A special condition of this campaign is that you need to hold at least two cities from the end of Turn 1 onwards or the game ends in defeat. So my next move really has to be to take Turin. But how many forces to send north? There is an ‘envelopment’ rule which says if your combat strength outnumbers the defenders’ by three to one, you win without having to fight, so I need to split my stack along those lines.
Decision 2: However! There’s a fog-of-war roll before each battle, and it’s quite likely, at least early on, that the defenders could get reinforcements, and sure enough they do. I no longer outnumber them three to one, so I have to fight a battle. But Decision 2 really refers to Napoleon - should I have taken him with this force, or left him behind in Nice? He doesn’t add any combat strength, but he does allow you to add the number of Battle Plans on his counter (2), which are the backbone of your strategy on the tactical layer. I left him behind, but this would have ramifications later…
Decision 3: I win my battle fairly easily, though the fog-of-war roll also set the battle to a tight 2-turn length. I had to purchase an extra Battle Plan using my supplies (because no Napoleon, I only had one) in order to conclude it within that time frame. We’ve captured Turin! After the battle I get to resupply, so Decision 3 is buying a cannon. I’m doing this because I saw it in a video, and a cannon can hit all over the field, not just in adjacent zones. I also buy a Scout, which allows me to negate an enemy roll.
Decision 4: And that Scout comes in handy immediately, as all the opposing forces make a beeline for Turin. Both Dichat (2 stacks) and diCuto make straight for Turin. I hadn’t realised that the enemy targets your weakest force, so Napoleon down in Nice with a numerically stronger force can sit this one out. It would be nice to have his two extra battle plans right now, but I also realise that I can negate one of the enemy’s rolls with my scout, so I send diCuto packing back to Genoa and make him roll again. He doesn’t make it this time :)
Decisions 5 to 15: We get onto the tactical board. I decide to stay in place and wait for the enemy to come onto me, but I also make a Haig-esque blunder by not moving my troops from column formation (good for advancing) to line formation (good for shooting - it’s more complicated than that but I’m simplifying for brevity). This means that when it’s time to shoot, I have to roll a die to activate each unit (I would not have to roll in Line formation, it’s automatic), and all these guys repeatedly fail their rolls. I end up losing nearly my best unit (La Harpe), but win the battle. I can buy him back later. (I also used my supplies to buy two extra battle plans here, which means I have three on the board).
To start off Turn 2, I’ll have to decide how to advance while still keeping my cities safe from the horde to the east. Attack is probably the best option, but I need to watch out for troops sneaking around me.
Really impressed with it so far! Lots to do and consider, while not being overly complicated. There are 11 campaigns and 7 mounted map boards, so lots of content. Looking forward to continuing the campaign today.
I completed my first game of Final Girl this morning.
I will start by saying this is a great design. I love the action tableau and the rhythm of playing actions, rescuing victims, getting more cards, etc. It is a nice and satisfying decision space to figure out when to save cards from round to round.
The quality is great. All the components are easy to read, art is wonderful, theme is spectacular, and card quality is good.
I won my game pretty easily. I’m re-reading the rules to see if I messed anything up, because I expected the killer to be more dangerous.
I only lost 3 victims, the killer never reached their dark power or did more than 2 damage (which is easy to block w a guard card). I had one card left in the terror deck.
If I didn’t mess up some rules, then I must have just been lucky. I pretty quickly got the trash can shield and a knife. Once I rescued enough victims to activate Laurie’s ability (one extra damage delay when damage applied) then it was a simple matter of moving to the killers space. I then didn’t need to use focus or walk cards, so I bought furious strike, guard or retaliate and the boosted them with plenty of extra cards. The result was doing 3pts of damage for even a single hit (Action + Knife + Laurie’s Ability). And Hans couldn’t get past guard + trashcan. Hans never moved from his spot, so it was just a matter of hammering away for a few turns.
I suspect this is partially just how Hans works. He doesn’t move a lot, and has to get his bloodlust up to be dangerous. But his targeting didn’t send him towards many victims… That could also just be luck.
Excited to mix and match villains, maps, and Final Girls
I am starting to winnow down my game collection, and I’d like to get them to good homes. I have a couple solitaire games up now for a nominal amount plus cost of shipping in the bargains thread. (Bargain Thread 2023 - #282)
This one is a lot of fun! I am a sucker for the horror movie theming,. I need to try out the sets that are totally not Alien and The Thing.
For my next dip into solitaire, I am eagerly awating Mr. President from GMT. I hope it is not too overwhelming. The sheer number of manuals is a little worrying, but I can probably get past it. The only thing I would want more is a Mr. President historical edition–basically, I want a solitaire version of the Founding Fathers game (the Republic of Rome knockoff, not the Euroish one).
The easiest rule to error on in Final Girl (and Hostage Negotiator) that makes the game too easy is the card rotation turn order. Just be sure that when you play a card, it goes into a pile and not the buy pool – and cannot be bought back to use the next immediate turn.
I did play that correctly!
I did the rules ok. The main I missed would have benefitted me, and that was discarding to gain time.
I think I’m chalking up my game to luck. The event deck was just generally kind to me, I had solid rolls.
Im excited to try a few of the others I have coming: Alien, The Thing, Knock at the Door, and the Asylum one.
Van Ryder is going to get a lot of money from me when Season 3 goes up on KS in a few months
Excellent then! I can tell you that it definitely gets to be a fairly difficult (but really fun, even when you get destroyed) game.
Just wanted to share that there is a crowdfunding going on for a set of David Thompson games: Pavlov’s House, Castile Itter, Lanzerath Ridge.
I know Pavlov’s house is/was popular on QT3:
I’ve had Pavlof and Itter but looking at Lanzerath, I swear I’ve had that also…I kind of remember playing it but I cannot absolutely recall playing it…wow, I"m getting old. Well, I dont remember, so purchased!
I can’t imagine buying all three of those games for $60 each. That’s like the opposite of a good deal, even if you like all three games. Yeesh.
(Full disclosure: I’ve only played Lanzerath Ridge, and it felt to me like a low-effort stinker with a staggering lack of replay value.)
Well, I found a copy for $42 with free shipping so if it’s a stinker, it’s not too expensive of one!
Pavlov’s House is great, although I’m not enough of a wargamer to want to get more games that are very similar to it.
I do find it weird that this campaign doesn’t include the other game in the series, Soldiers in Postmen’s Uniforms.
I agree. I don’t see any incentive to get on crowdfunding.
Same concerns here about the lack of replayability with Lanzerath Ridge. I would like to try out the other two at some point but not at that price. I will probably play Pavlov’s House on Steam.
I believe it’s because the three in the package are out of print, while SiPU isn’t.
I’ve played Lanzerath quite a bit. I thought I was pretty much done with the game at the standard level, but I found that the playability improves when you add the veteran level mechanic. It adds a deck of cards that creates a bit more unpredictability, tension, balance, and challenge to the game. It’s not my favorite solitaire wargame, but I do enjoy the game at that level.
But I totally agree about the standard level. Once you play the game once, you pretty much know what’s coming and can plan accordingly. The standard level gameplay also becomes “gamey” and abstract, as you can just ignore enemies right in front of you if you know that there aren’t any more enemy cards for that particular queue.
It was your playthrough that decided me against it! :D I had the same thing with Votes for Women and SGS Okinawa - I really enjoyed your playthroughs but at the end I felt I’d seen most of what the games had to offer. Especially Okinawa; I was thinking, ‘Well, I’m not gonna play it any differently than that.’ You kind of play them too well :).
Haha! This actually makes me quite happy, thanks for sharing. One of my hopes is that created content will help people make better informed decisions about games. In some cases that means picking up the game, and in some cases that might mean deciding against the game.
