My first (and last?) game of España 1936

A long time coming

Regular readers will be well aware that I'm not a negative reviewer as a rule. It's too easy to find negativity on the web, and the first editorial decision I made way back in 2005 was that I wasn't going to contribute to it here at RD/KA!. Also, when I review anything, I've paid for it and therefore have a good reason to want to like it. Every so often though, something comes along which disappoints me sufficiently to prompt a distinct lack of enthusiasm to which I cannot but give vent. Antonio Catalán's game of the Spanish Civil War- España 1936, is a case in point. 

Dust off and dust-up

Waiting in the wings

España 1936 is a game I bought on sight when I saw it in Static Games, an FLGS: the subject of the Spanish Civil War interested me and the box ad-copy showed nice-looking components. It then joined my collection of dust-gatherers, where it stayed for a good three years. Only recently, with Liam's newfound enthusiasm for strategic boardgames, did I begin to think that I might finally get a chance to bring España 1936 to the table. My thinking was this game would serve as a useful bridge between Labyrinth and Twilight Struggle on the one hand, and games like Unhappy King Charles! on the other.

And so, on Wednesday night Liam and I sat down to have a go. Five hours later, I'd won the game, but España 1936 had lost the vote of confidence.

The long dark night of the dice rolls #2: light at the end of the tunnel

Give me hexes, counters
& CRTs, goddammit!

I wrote last time about some of the highlights in recent multiplayer gaming. Today, I'm going to look back at some of the 2-player fun I've been having. When the Sunday sessions dried up I came to realise that the last couple of months of Sunday gaming had been slightly frustrating: we'd been playing too many light Euros. It's not that I don't like these games- I do; it's just that I wanted some meatier fare, with the lighter games filling their proper role, namely filler. I'm pleased to say that I've managed in the past couple of months to satisfy this desire to a significant extent.

Combat Commander

Regular readers won't be surprised that Badger and I have been keeping up our regular Combat Commander games. We've mostly being playing our way through the Combat Commander Battle Pack #3: Normandy. The scenarios start at the beginning, with Operation Deadstick- the Ox and Bucks' coup de main at the Bénouville (later Pegasus) Bridge in the early minutes of June 6th 1944; and finish at the end, with the 1st Polish Armoured Division's stand on Hill 262 ('The mace') during the battle of the Falaise pocket in late August. In between there are beaches to fight your way off of, beachhead fortifications to overcome, lots of bocage to fight your way through, villages to capture, and a couple of scenarios featuring French Resistance forces to boot.

Getting down to business?

I'm still working on my setup for that game of TS@VASSAL. This isn't because the rules are particularly difficult- they're not, as is evidenced by the mere 8 pages of actual rules in the 28-page rulebook, a whole page of which furthermore is devoted to components and setup; no, what's holding me up is the complexity of the gameplay resulting from the essentially simple elements. In other words, there is a lot to think about! For the benefit of readers, let me explain how the game works.

The world of Twilight Struggle
The world that was the superpowers' playground during the Cold War is depicted in Twilight Struggle on a map which divides the globe into 6 regions, each showing the most important countries in that region. The mapboard also features various information panels and record tracks as you can see.

Getting cyber on yer ass!

CC@VASSAL?-: not yet
Site-visiting readers alert to the sidebar content might already be asking themselves what and why questions about the new links recently added under the cybergaming heading:

• ACTS.
• VASSAL.

Cybergaming? Not computer gaming as such, cybergaming uses ICT to faciliate playing boardgames via the web, using apps typically requiring ownership of the boxed game. Regular readers might remember VASSAL, where an fB friend and fellow BGGer and I last January played what was my first turn of transatlantic Combat Commander.

DiceConWest 2008

I still made it to this year's DiceConWest, where I took these pictures.

Ivanhoe. Here's Donald, Natasha and Andy in the heat of our medieval tournament.

Wings of War. And here we are at peril in our flying tinderboxes over the trenches...

Dakka! Dakka! Dakka! Complete with Andy's nifty WoW planes.

A family at war! Donald next decided to introduce Natasha to Memoir'44, a game where she'd've felt quite at home (she did, in fact, win, I seem to recall).

Here are some other sights from the day.

Ellis and Gordon at play.

Pandemic. A new release, this game (@BGG) seemed to be something of a favourite on the day.

A game of Battlelore under way.

A DoW Ticket to Ride game.

Twilight Struggle. This card-driven game of Cold War conflict was an unexpected hit for GMT back in 2005. It had long since sold out its first print run by the time that the positive buzz across the web had brought it to my attention. I made sure to look out for the reprint, which meant that I was also looking out for a game at DiceConWest. In the end Alan Poulter, webmaster over at Web-Grognards, was pleased to show me the ropes.

I'm not going properly to review Twilight Struggle here, but that long and painful first game with Alan was certainly a highlight of my DiceConWest 2008. I'm no stranger to long game sessions at all; and Descent means that I'm not unfamiliar with long games either these days; but that game of TI reintroduced me to a brain-burning intensity I'd quite forgotten. I lost of course, going down to an instant victory on VP in the very last turn, but such fun it was!