13 Days. The Cuban missile crises is very like a cut down version of the mighty Twilight Struggle.  
Unless you couldn’t guess it, it’s based on the 13 days of the Cuban missile crisis in 1962 where JFK and Krushev “oh yeah’d?” each other to the brink of nuclear war. You get to do the same with a chum. 
The game is VERY similar to Twilight Struggle but plays out in 45 mins or so. It happens over three rounds on nine locations with four moves per round. (As opposed to roughly 30 odd locations, 10 rounds and 7 turns) 

At the start of the round you draw three and choose one scoring agenda card. You mark the three locations of these so your opponent has a clue what you’re up to. You then draw five strategy cards and play them out twilight struggle style either kicking off the event or using the control score to dominate battlegrounds. Strategy cards are either neutral (UN), USSR or USA. use a card with your opponent’s flag on it and they get to trigger the event while you get the control points. 
You also squirrel away one card for the end game. When the dust settles you add all of the USA and USSR points allocated to this at the end and the highest gets a bonus couple of points. 

While this is happening you need to keep an eye on your position on the defcon track. While as a rule it’s better to be ahead of your opponent you don’t want to wind up in Defcon one and the have the whole world go Alderan and you remembered as the button pusher. Adding troops to a location raises your defcon level. Removing them reduces it so choose your battles carefully and more importantly con your opponent into committing force to the wrong places. 
There’s a shit ton (a scientific measure) of strategic options here. I like that there’s no dice. It’s not required. It’s all about out guessing your opponent. The game is fast. It demands replays and that’s exactly what I plan to do
Huzzah!
Vic 

You’ve NEVER played Risk? We recently found a player who hadn’t played it and like the plants from planet of the apes there has to be more.
Risk just like Diplomacy is as old school as it gets. A lot of players started on their gaming odyssey with this very game. Bless you Parker brothers.

The first thing that strikes you about Risk is how small the map is. We’ve become so used to big boards for our games and the need for some more real estate for our own game boards and bits and pieces. Not Risk! It will fit snugly on your granny’s fold out table with lots of space for cups of tea. You start with your counters on the map, gain a few more each turn and if you’re lucky gain a card each turn. That’s it.

The game is the quintessential map based conquest game. There are multiple variants, versions, themes and house rules but the classic base game sees you drawing a secret mission like “wipe out blue” or “conquer Asia and Africa” (good luck with that) and off you go dominating the world or at least the bits that matter to you. Bonus points for paranoia from never quite knowing what your opponents mission is until the final slap down. Interestingly I believe the expression “goddammit I would have won next turn” originated from Risk and has been popular ever since.
The map of the world is made up of around two dozen locations which you can solely occupy with your armies. The more locations you occupy the more reinforcements you gain at the start of your turn. On top of that you gain bonus armies for controlling whole regions. Owning all the territories in Australia gives you two bonus armies. Controlling North America five and so on. Don’t bother with Asia for its dizzying seven bonus armies. It’s wayyy too hard to hold. If you conquer at least one territory in your turn you get a cards. Cash in three and more lovely armies for you.
Combat is simple and dice based. As a general rule bring more armies to a fight and you’ll win but not always. There are many exaggerated stories of one army holding off a dozen with lucky rolls.
The game is quick or it can be. I’ve seen games over in half and hour. I’ve seen them run for two.
Alliances rise and fall, usually extinguished after the sentence “why are you sticking so many armies next to my border?”. It’s fun it’s quick it’s simple. It’s been around longer than Adam’s apple and there’s a very high chance you’ve played it to death. If you haven’t it’s definitely worth trying. Don’t go looking for the greatest game ever designed (that’s Diplomacy). Enjoy it and move on. It’s definitely worth your time
Huzzah!
Vic

Coup is a great filler game, unfortunately like a lot of good filler games you play too much of it and you tire of it. G64 is good but it never stuck with my group. Hoax from Fantasy Flight has possibilities at least for a while until like Ming the Merciless we tire of it and blast it into space

Hoax is pretty similar to Coup. Each player gets a role card (one this time) but can CLAIM they are anyone and use their ability. An ability might be to take stuff from opponents, claim certain tokens from the central pool and so on. The goal of the game is to correctly identify a player and knock them out (last player standing) or have someone accuse you of NOT being a claimed role and prove them wrong by proudly showing the card to them.

Unlike Coup there are now three resources, the always popular Cash, Evidence and Prestige. During your turn if you have a set of all three you can directly accuse a player of being a particular role and knock them out. Equally during your turn when a player claims to be a certain role you can shout “PULL THE OTHER ONE!” or something similar and everyone votes with thumbs up or thumbs down if they agree with your surmise.

This is a dangerous gamble because if they ARE the role they claim and everyone votes they’re not they automatically win the game. After your first few games of automatic wins you’ll lose your coup instincts and take a more slow route to victory. If someone isn’t who they claim to be they get a marker on their card showing them as not being that role and blocking them from using that ability again and narrowing down whom they could be

Getting a set of three tokens together allows you to do a fuzzy check of whom they are. The target draws three cards whom they aren’t and one whom they are and shows them to the questioning player so you can narrow down who they could be.

Rinse and repeat until you win. Hopefully.

Games last anything between a minute and ten. It’s good clean fun while it lasts and there is a real urge to play again. I can see this as a worthy successor to Coup if you’ve had enough of that.

Huzzah!

Vic

Remember playing dots when you were young? Welcome to Android Mainframe! It’s a light, fairly short area control game, playable by up to four, set in the android cyberpunk universe. 

A better analogy would be the old arcade game Qix If you remember it….. No? Ok doesn’t matter. It’s like that if you do. 

There’s a theme in here too but I can’t be bothered digging into it. Each hacker starts with eight control tokens, a hand of three special cards and eyeballing the other players across an empty (very nice click together) plastic grid. To score points player have to do the following, stick down their control points then surround them with little (Catan road like) blue sticks. To facilitate this players draw from a face up spread of four cards. Each card shows either a Tetris shape of blue sticks the player can place or a tricksie move sticks/move control point one. 

Once a player surrounds one of their control points it’s locked in place and cannot be changed. At the end the more space you control the more points you get. More so if you have multiple control points in it. 
It’s quite tactical. You can’t capture an area of someone else’s control point is in it with you so cutting people off, moving their guys, changing their almost complete zone, basically being a dick is all fair game. Obviously I like it 

To add a little variety each hacker starts with three unique one shot fairly powerful cards from a pool of six. The game rattles on for twenty minutes or so until all the cards run out the it’s count your points. 
Production wise it’s Fantasy Flight good. I really like the click together board with recesses for pieces. Art work is on par with the android card game. Pieces and cards are solid 
It’s a good filler game. As always I’ll have it at the next Knavecon. Well worth a look 

Huzzah!

Vic

Onwards to Venus is a fairly new game by his holiness Martin Wallace set in the Steampunk world of Doctor Grordbort. Five mustachioed nations set out to be the most points dominant amongst equals. The map consists of a half dozen planets or so each seeded each round with a number of random one use tokens. 
The game plays out over three rounds and sees players raising troops and traveling out to planets to claim tokens and execute their respective actions. These actions could be build a mine. Build a factory. Start a fight. Grab some cards. Up your score or selflessly fight an uprising. 

Building stuff increases your income and having the most presence on planets gains you victory points. It’s standard enough stuff but where it gets interesting is the uprisings. Planets don’t like your type around here and as time progresses are more likely to rebel and wipe out your great works and everyone else’s there. Going against your lifelong principles you may find yourself quelling these and helping others by helping yourself or more comfortably sitting back and letter someone else do the dirty work and gaining the benefits. Quelling uprisings is key and a real gamble. It’s a sweet mechanic. (There’s also a third option of ignoring them and having everyone on the planet burn with you when the moon men (or whomever) rise up)
Theme is strong here. It’s all daring do. Steam powered contraptions and outlandish WW1 styling, larger than life heroes and death rays. I love the vibe. Games are close run with plenty of cock blockery and the occasional rumble. It whizzes along at a jolly old pace and it scales well with more players (max 5)

There’s going to be a few copies floating abut at Knavecon 8 (Sept 17). It’s good clean jolly old fun. Perfect for ladies and gentlemen of good standing
Huzzah what what!
Vic 

I got to play Across the Rhine recently at the UK Expo. It’s a game I had a vague knowledge of and having seen it as I approached the table demo I knew I was going to like it. It was a treat to have the rules explained by the developers and to meet the designer.  Phalanx are a cool games company from Poland with some really high end offerings. I can see myself trying a few more of their games in the future (obviously not in the past)

The game is a little different and strongly thematic. It’s set during the wind down of the War in 1944 and sees three allied powers racing to be the first to cross the Rhine and claim glory for the final capitulation of Germany.

The game is not so much about fighting (although this is part of it) as getting the logistics in place to keep the thrust rolling. Each turn sees you firstly trying to supply your fighting corps and keep them pushing forward and then to swap hats and take control of the German forces and direct them to slow the other two allies down.  It’s a clever mechanic, everyone’s a good guy, everyone’s a bad guy.

The map shows the west of Europe from the coast of France to just across the Rhine in Germany. Each player starts with a supply base in the west (at the bottom of the map) where war materiel in the shape of ammo, food and gas is landed and a network of roads and villages/towns where army Corps can move to and supply must flow.

Each turn a player can take two actions such as

Send out supply on a line of trucks to a location. Move a Corp or land more supplies at the staging area. Each of the commanders in charge of the three allies have some special abilities, Montgomery is good with supplies and grants a bonus, Bard has access to more air support.  Patton can give an extra push to troops

As corps move along through the various villages they spend ammo to defeat the Germany defenders, fuel to move and as each pulse of new supplies arrive food to feed the men. Not having enough of these will slow or stop the corps advance. Likewise each village/town entered has it’s own surprises. it might contain resistance fighters that assist the allies, supply dumps or starving villagers who you can give some of your supplies to for extra points. Taking certain key points and carrying out certain actions gives the players medals which in the all too possible case that no-one gets across the Rhine are then used to determine the winner. Equally first across the Rhine is the winner straight off and medals don’t count.

The map after a little while starts to look like the title sequence of Dad’s Army in reverse and areas liberated by a player become marked with their respective flags and cannot be entered by the other two allies, so fast pushes forward can block other players and force them to take a longer route to victory. Equally undefended areas can be taken back by the Germans and it’s possible to cut and immobilise corps who can’t trace a supply route back to their base.

The game is a little like Quartermaster General but on a smaller and more complex scale. Although allies never obviously attack each other they can make it difficult for each other in a surprisingly large number of ways. Blocking paths, hogging resources and supply trucks and moving Axis units into annoying locations. The way it plays is refreshing, there are opportunities to co-operate (well maybe in other less bitter gaming groups) and opportunities to backstab and welsh on deals.

It’s very much a unique game but I can see elements of Rome v Cartage (something Phallanx are releasing a new version of), Powergrid, Twilight Struggle and a number of other great games in here.

Production qualities are great, lovely artwork, solid pieces, clear and consise rules. I’m impressed and will do another write up on it after several games have been played.

Until then, last one across the Rhine is a rotten egg!

Huzzah!

Vic

First time at the UK games expo this weekend. What a treat it was. 
After an early 3:30am wake up I slid down to cork and flew to Birmingham in time to join the queues for tickets. The clever gamers got there on Friday and avoided the Saturday rush. The NEC is right next to the airport and a free monorail zips you over there quick smart. 

The expo is like a smaller version of Essen and by smaller I mean not that small. My understanding was 14,000 gamers attended the one at the weekend (which by coincidence is my target for Knavecon 8 in September) 
The expo concentrates firmly on boardgames. There was a small representation for tabletop stuff but no Warhammer and no collectable card games (you know who you are). There was also a small but well marshaled cosplay section 🙂

Most of the game shop from the UK were there (pretty much) and there was a great lending library available. The buy and sell was BIG. I didn’t get into it until Sunday afternoon as I didn’t fancy waiting on line like a mook for a half hour. When I did most of the good stuff was gone or priced a bit high or of no interest to me really. I saw one or two bits but nothing my heart was set on
Just like Essen, Fantasy Flight, Days of Wonder and all the other big names were running game demos on multiple tables. I got to try out a few new ones (and buy them). A lot of smaller outfits were there too all demoing and selling their wares. GW or whatever they’re called were notable by their absence 

Particularly cool was getting to meet some of the game designers and try out their games. There are some amazing people involved in our hobby. 
Good kids section, good play tester area, good food, great location and I got to meet the nearest we have to celebs, Tom Vassal and Sam Healy (both of which are BIG dudes in person), you could have one or the other at your gaming table not both :). There were a few other celebs there too but didn’t catch up with them. 

Negatives? Sterling difference is a killer. Accommodation was a bit far away but I’ve only myself to blame for doing it last minute. Will I go again? Definitely. Next time with a gang and a bit more organized. 
Bought a tall stack of games which will all appear at Knavecon (more on those later). 

Great Con well worth the visit
Huzzah!
Vic 

I remember watching Band of Brothers many years ago and occasionally mouthing the bad F word, stretched out, involuntarily during the combat scenes.  I’ve done the same quite a bit playing Xcom 2 over the last few weeks.  That a number of other choice expletives.

Xcom 2 has been a slow grower. At first I thought it was just more of the Xcom same but I grew to like it.  Since adding the Alien Hunters DLC which again I wasn’t impressed with at the beginning the game has become my new obsession.  Well let me put it this way, how often do you see me writing reviews on computer games rather than board games? It has to be something rather special for me to break my normal cycle (or I might not has gamed recently and I don’t have anything else interesting to talk about)

Alien Hunters DLC which was recently released is a small add on to the already excellent Xcom 2.  Unlike advent children which is just new and not so good skins this adds a number of small but surprisingly  impressive ripples to the game play pond

Queen Aliens

the Rulers are a group of Super Aliens way WAY more powerful than the already powerful aliens and way WAY faster than them to.  They are quite simply a royal pain the ass.  They follow you throughout the campaign occasionally beaming in during a mission to make a mockery of your cleverly laid plans.  They do make for magnificent arch enemies.  Once they’ve taken a bit of damage they summon a portal and then high tail it away to pop up later in the campaign to cause more trouble.  Like all good arch enemies they are damn hard to kill. 

Xcom has always been you move all your dudes. The AI moves all their dudes and repeat. The rulers unlike the normal aliens move everytime you take ANY action with ONE of your dudes. Reload a gun? The ruler takes a move. Fire one of your dudes. The ruler takes a turn. It’s brutal. A massively overpowered alien kitted out with devastating abilities and moving effectively in bullet time. When you eventually take one out it’s a real achievement and the cue for the next much nastier ruler to appear on the scene. 

New armour

Killing a ruler allows you to research it and gives you access to some unique armour with rather sweet special abilities. I won’t ruin it but some of the new kit is just awesome

New weapons

You also get access to a host of one off weapons some of which are really powerful BUT you need to mind them. They’re irreplaceable and losing a dude in the field is the end of it if you don’t carry their body home 

Overall

The difficulty level on an already difficult game ramps up a bit more. Once you accept this it’s fine. It’s way more exciting. The game is no longer safe and that’s no bad thing. 

And you know what? I haven’t even mentioned the tons of free mods out there for it or had a crack at multiplayer. Right enough talk back to my campaign. 

Huzzah!

Vic 
 

Part one

I spoke about a part one to this article before Knavecon 7 and here it is. Let’s start with the holy grail, the granddaddy, the big cheese, the ayatollah of Rock and rolla!
Diplomacy
Diplomacy or Dip to people who want to sound like they know how to play is the quintessential game of deal making and back stabbing. It’s not IF you’ll be betrayed by your most loyal ally it’s WHEN. you’re no longer a gaming debutante after you play Diplomacy. You’ll remember your first game for life. 
Do onto others before they do onto you. Lesson to learn is when doing onto others just make sure they can never do back onto you again. At least in this game. We can deal with the next game another time 
The term meta game could have been invented for Diplomacy. You may win this game but your card is marked for the next one and the ones after that. Diplomacy is like the black pudding industry. It requires constant fresh blood. At least if you want to win again. 

So how does it all work? Well it’s Very simple. You start the game as one of seven powers (did I mention it’s seven player?) in Europe in 1900. You control three units (either navies or armies) on a map of forty or so locations. All you do is write down a set of orders to move your guys. That’s it. Three orders. Trick is everyone playing does the same SECRETLY so you don’t know what everyone else is up to until all orders are in and the turn happens. Turn happens might better be worded as the results are imposed on you. Yes it’s that simple, but and this is the big but (and I cannot lie) it’s the discussions and deals cut before the orders are submitted that make this game. 
Players can assist each other in attacks against others but remember you can’t trust them. They may SAY they’re going to assist but when it comes to order time they may have lied. May. YOU may have lied. You may have told the truth to lure them into a warm cocoon of friendship. I’m your friend I’m going to help you. Look at the monkey look at the monkey. Sorry about attacking you last turn buddy it was an oversight we can be friends again, Germany hates you. 

I’ve known players to quit games of diplomacy because they become a bit paranoid. They thought everyone else were talking about them. (They were). I’ve seen a lot of underhand behind the scenes work done to gain advantage in a game (I may or may not have done some of this myself). The game gives you back what you put in and it’s all about the players. 
More so than every other game there are no friends just greasy rungs on your ladder. This game is a hard lesson in life (some people are still bitching about being “educated” by me some twenty years later). This is a game that should be taught in school. Once a year for your entire educational career and then well after that too. This is the tai chai of gaming and if you haven’t played this game you really need to get your socks on and try it. Not everyone will like it. Not everyone will get it. But those who do will look at things in a different way. Your so called friends, your job, the world around you, your weak weak self. 
There are umpteen resources out there to play this game. Don’t bother against AIs except to learn. Face to face. Online. Email. You can play it by smoke signals I’m sure. I’ve hosted many many fine games of diplomacy (I even won a game once). Have a Google. Talk to me. I’ll get you in a game. It’s worth the effort. It’s life changing 
I’m Victor Gannon, this is Diplomacy and you need to play this game before you die
Huzzah!
Vic 

Through the ages is a great, great game. The new version “Through the Ages a New story of Civilization” is greater greater game. It’s a refined version of the original. Short version of review. 
TTA is an interesting beast. A civilization builder without a map. It might be more accurate to describe it as an economy builder with the ability to throw a spanner in other player’s works. Usually at the most inopportune time. Don’t worry there’s also AMPLE opportunity to hoist yourself on your own petard. TTA is a hard mistress.  

It’s also a very clever game. There’s several elements to it. A grab for cards that appear on the conveyor belt of history. A juggling of resources to improve your lot and a constant struggle to stay, if not ahead then close enough to everyone else militarily so you don’t get ganked. Repeatedly. 
Like all resource games you never have enough of everything and you have to just do your best with what you have and plan well ahead. There’s no one route to victory. Get big and rich and the others will plunder you. Get ahead technically and the others will plunder you. Get ahead militarily and go out there and plunder others like a good Christian. Military on its own just doesn’t work btw. Some will disagree. As the ages roll by it takes cash money to keep up with the latest tech and sticking all your cash into weapons will leave you with spears and bows against tanks and aircraft. But listen you’re not dumb you figured that yourself. Like all good games it’s a balancing act, making the best worse choices. Working with limited resources. Making do. I’ve started to see parallels between this and Twilight Struggle but this game is two to four players which is sweet. Not by any means the same type of game but similar Ban Ki-moon headaches. 

Say one thing for TTA it demands repeat plays to learn how the cards flow. There are four ages. All the cards in the decks will appear (pretty much) although someone else may snatch them up before you and begrudgery is a key skill. There are certain cards that you really really need like improved mining and agriculture oh and science. The problem is so does everyone else so it’s a scramble. Despite limited cards it’s rarely luck that loses you a game. Someone grabbing the iron before you is not the end of the world something better will appear. Make sure you jump on it this time. 
Again like a lot of games of this sort you really need to play people of your own skill level to get the most out of it unless you want to improve. In which case play against a shark and get a paddling but learn from it. 
Despite what some people contend it is a Long game. You want to budget four hours for it and be thankful if you get out Early. There’s no early wins it always to the biter end. 

In case you haven’t gathered. I really love this game. I rate it up there with Twilight Struggle. It’s harsh, it’s unforgiving but it a joy to play. The new version is like a tweaked version of the original, gone are a lot of the minor (and major) niggles from the first one. The whole thing just looks and works beautifully and It really shouldn’t work. A 4x game missing at least one x. It absolutely and utterly does work. It’s a wonderful game. You need to play this game if you haven’t already and if you’ve played the old version you need to try out the new one and soon
Huzzah!
Vic